A Rare & Important Anglo-Japanese Cast Brass Fireplace Insert by Thomas Jeckyll

Thomas Jeckyll was a master of metalwork during the Victorian era. He achieved great success as an architect and his legacy lives on through his gorgeous metal interior design fittings like fireplaces and mantels. Jeckyll’s furniture designs, which include dining room chairs and writing desks, demonstrate his ornate touches and exquisite attention to detail.

Jeckyll’s career began in East Anglia, England, in the 1850s and 1860s. He restored historic buildings and designed schools and rectories in the Gothic Revival style. He also restored churches and built new ones, most notably the Holt Methodist Church in Norfolk.

From 1865 to 1872, Jeckyll worked on the furniture and interior of the Oak Parlour at Heath Old Hall in Wakefield, where he combined Elizabethan and Jacobean styles with Moorish and Japanese influences. Around the same time, he worked on Rance’s Folly, a five-story townhouse in Cambridge, which he restored in the graceful Queen Anne style.

His most famous commission came in 1876 when he was tasked with restoring and redecorating 49 Prince’s Gate in London, then the home of Frederick Richards Leyland, a transatlantic shipping magnate. Jeckyll incorporated Dutch leather, walnut shelving and blue-and-white Chinese porcelain into the design. 

Jeckyll died in 1881. In 2003, the Bard Graduate Center in New York City held the first-ever exhibition of his works. “Thomas Jeckyll: Architect and Designer” showcased 160 pieces of furniture, metalwork, textiles, architectural fragments, photographs and other elements to provide an overview of the designer’s life and career.

Jeckyll’s work continues to resonate with today’s designers and architects. David Scott Parker, in his Associated Artists gallery, carries works by Jeckyll as examples of English Aesthetic Movement furniture.

On 1stDibs, find antique Thomas Jeckyll fireplace elements, seating, tables and more.