Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin Bookcases

An early 19th century Gothic oak bookcase, the rectangular crenellated top with octafoil panels filled with carved roses, fleur de lis, and a portcullis on a tudor rose back panel above a cavetto frieze mounted with carved oak leaves above two doors, each with two Gothic arched apertures filled with unique metal grilles, enclosing three adjustable shelves to each side, the base section with two blind arcaded doors enclosing an adjustable shelf, on a double plinth base, the lower plinth later, the interior stamped twice 'CLAREMONT', the reverse inscribed in ink 'Mr Young 18.5'. Provenance: Supplied for the Palace of Westminster but by 1866 recorded at Claremont House, Esher. This robust Gothic bookcase, enriched with Elizabethan cusped tracery and heraldically-charged castellations, is conceived in the William IV romantic English manner introduced as the ‘New Palace of Westminster’ style, with the collaboration in the mid-1830s of the architects Charles Barry (d. 1860) and A.W.N. Pugin (d. 1852). Westminster Palace’s ‘fort portcullis’ badge is displayed in cusped tablets within embattled parapets, which are flowered with the English cinquefoile rose. This bookcase appears to be a precursor for the more florid bookcases designed for the New Palace by Pugin in the mid-1840s. It may possibly have been intended for the King’s Tower (now called the Victoria Tower). Pugin established a furniture manufactory in Convent...