A Pair of Aesthetic Movement Ebonised Wood Cabinets by Gillow

View Similar Items

Pair of Cabinets by Charles Dudouyt

Indian Aesthetic Movement Cabinet

Bruce Talbert for Gillows attri, A Fine Aesthetic Movement Oak & Glazed Cabinet

Aesthetic Movement Burl Oak Serving Cabinet

Pair of Oak Cabinets

Aesthetic Movement Victorian Music Cabinet

Brazilian Modern File Cabinet Pair in Wood by Geraldo de Barros, c 1970, Brazil

Aesthetic Movement Bamboo and Lacquer Cabinet

Pair of Sideboards/Cabinets, Gaetano Sciolari, Circa 1970

Set of 2 Ceramic Contemporary Cabinets by FAINA

Set of 2 Ceramic Contemporary Cabinets by Faina

Large Carved Wood Cabinet "Hunter" Unique Piece

Want more images or videos?

Request additional images or videos from the seller

1 of 5

A Pair of Aesthetic Movement Ebonised Wood Cabinets by Gillow

About the Item

A Fine Pair of Aesthetic Movement Ebonised Wood Cabinets by Gillow designed by Bruce James Talbert Circa 1867-1871 Height 49 ½ in. Width 60 in. Depth 19 ½ Each cabinet with an upper section with turnings and a back splash lined with crushed velvet, the bottom section with a decorated frieze with a central drawer over two cupboard doors opening to a shelved interior all resting on bracket feet Provenance: Countess Maria Zichy Le Trianon Fine Art & Antiques Similair Example found in the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, USA Credit: Cabinet, for Gillow & Company, c.1871 (ebonised wood), Talbert, Bruce James (1838-81) / Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, USA Acquisition Fund / The Bridgeman Art Library .Aesthetic Movement decorative arts: Aesthetic style furniture is characterized by several common themes: Ebonized wood with gilt highlights. Far Eastern influence. Prominent use of nature, especially flowers, birds, ginkgo leaves, and peacock feathers. Blue and white on porcelain and other fine china. Ebonized furniture means that the wood is painted or stained to a black ebony finish. The furniture is sometimes completely ebony-colored. More often however, there is gilding added to the carved surfaces of the feathers or stylized flowers that adorn the furniture.[citation needed] As aesthetic movement decor was similar to the corresponding writing style in that it was about sensuality and nature, nature themes often appear on the furniture. A typical aesthetic feature is the gilded carved flower, or the stylized peacock feather. Colored paintings of birds or flowers are often seen. Non-ebonized aesthetic movement furniture may have realistic-looking 3-dimensional-like renditions of birds or flowers carved into the wood. Gillow History: Robert Gillow began making furniture around 1730, some 20 years before Thomas Chippendale, and developed first a national and then an international reputation as a supplier of quality furniture to the upper middle classes, the landed gentry, and the aristocracy. The company won commissions to furnish and decorate public buildings in Australia, South Africa, India, Russia, Germany, France and the U.S., and it also executed Pugin’s designs for London’s Palace of Westminster from 1840. If Gillows is less of a household name than Chippendale, Sheraton or Hepplewhite, it is because the firm kept its pattern books, the Estimate Sketch Books, a closely guarded secret, for craftsmen and customers only. Gillows of Lancaster boasted the widest stock outside London, and, uniquely for a provincial company in the eighteenth century, had workshops and showrooms in the capital. Furniture Gillows supplied large quantities of craftsman-made furniture to the middle and upper middle classes and to wealthy Londoners and provincial landowners. The firm has sometimes been dismissed as a mere follower of fashion, sound but unimaginative and unpretentious. But what it did, it did very well – by the 1780s Gillows was known for a simplicity and concentration of line, and for clever use of convex and concave surfaces and planes. As well as working in solid mahogany, Gillows made veneered and painted furniture, and often used japanning to imitate inlay. As textiles came down in price, the firm moved into upholstery – staying ahead of the game in 1785 when it sent an upholsterer from London to work in the Lancaster factory. Gillows was not a slave to fashion. It made designs by Wyatt, Hepplewhite, Sheraton and Chippendale and was always attuned to customers’ tastes. In the provinces these tastes were often conservative, and commissions could last ten years. Furnishing a large house took time, for money was often short after the initial acquisition of the property. By the time Gillows made a library table for Sir James Ibbetson of Denton Hall, near Otley in Yorkshire, the Thomas Chippendale design that it followed was no longer featured in his catalogue, The Director. Gillows can be credited with many innovations. In the mid-1760s it initiated and exploited the craze for billiard tables and produced a ladies’ version, the trou-madame. It invented the extending dining table – including, in 1800, the telescopic version, the “Patent Imperial.” The firm was inventive in adapting designs to customer’s requirements – 1795 saw a round library table with a revolving top. It fitted secrétaires with movable drawers and partitions, like early filing cabinets, and it even made a bureau bedstead that served as a desk but pulled out to a bed. The social or “gentleman’s” table, horseshoe-shaped with japanned ice buckets, appeared around 1800, as did bonheurs du jour (ladies’ writing tables). Another version of the social table was semi-circular, with a firescreen along the straight side and a sliding holder for bottles. The Davenport, a lady’s desk, was featured in the sketchbooks from 1816. Gillows made medicine chests, powdering closets, linen presses, clothes horses, squirrel cages, meat safes, and boot jacks, not to mention coffins. The Catholic connection brought orders for tabernacles, crucifixes, altar pieces… the Estimate Sketch Books are a rich source of Georgian social history. Marks and Identification Gillows began marking its furniture earlier than many other makers. In the 1770s, a printed label “Gillow and Taylor” was attached. The “Gillows Lancaster” stamp was widespread from 1780 until the mid-nineteenth century, when it was replaced by a simple “Gillow” stamp. In the 1870s, the mark consisted of a capital L, followed by a serial number and the “Gillows Lancaster” stamp. At the end of the nineteenth century came the “Gillow & Co” stamp. Waring & Gillow marked their output with a thin brass plate. Talbert, Bruce J. (1838-81) Probably in 1857 rather than the 1856, the date usually given, Talbert moved to Glasgow to work for William Nairne Tait, but by 1860 he was in the office of Campbell Douglas & Stevenson from which he won two prizes, an architectural design medal in 1860 and the Edinburgh Architectural Association medal. In 1862 Talbert moved to Manchester to design furniture for the cabinet makers Doveston Bird & Hull but in October of that year he moved to Francis Skidmore’s Art Manufactures in Coventry at a salary of four guineas a week. There he drew up the working drawings for George Gilbert Scott’s Hereford Cathedral screen and Albert Memorial. He remained there until 1866 when he moved to London to work for Holland & Sons, furniture makers who were then preparing for the Paris Exhibition of 1867. His designs won a silver medal and commissions from Cox & Son, ecclesiastical metalworkers, and the furniture makers Gillows flowed in. In the same year, 1867, he published ‘Gothic Forms applied to Furniture, Metalwork and Decoration for Domestic Purposes’, the first plates of which appeared in July. But over-commitment and the London atmosphere had affected his health and he returned to Dundee where he set up ‘a tasteful studio’, address not traced, completed ‘Gothic Forms’ and provided designs for Gillows and James Lamb of Manchester. Probably in 1869 he returned to London, living first at 10 Nottingham Place and then at 18 Bury Street (1871) and 11 Argyle Street (1872). He continued to work for Gillows, Cox & Son and the Coalbrookdale Iron Company, and began exhibiting designs for interiors at the Royal Academy. In 1873 he took premises at 98 Gower Street jointly with the stained glass artist George Cook, close to the premises of Cottier & Co in which his former colleague at Campbell Douglas’s, John McKean Brydon, was a partner. The Gower Street business prospered and in June 1874 he married Amy Adkins, the daughter of the well-off Birmingham maltster, Henry Adkins. They took a house at 5 Euston Square which then became both house and studio. In 1876 Talbert brought out his second book ‘Examples of Ancient and Modern Furniture, Metal Work, Tapestries, Decoration etc’ and he soon had more work than he could carry out, his clients now also including Warners; Jackson & Graham; Marsh Jones & Cribb; Collinson & Lock; Vaughan & Sons; Caleb Trapnell of Bristol; Steel & Garland of Sheffield; William Frain of Dundee; Templetons Carpets of Glasgow; and many others, possibly including Walter MacFarlane & Co of Saracen Iron Works, Glasgow. The crowning achievement of his career was winning the Grand Prix at the Paris Exhibition of 1878 with the Juno cabinet made by Jackson & Graham.

Dimensions:
Height: 49.5 in (125.73 cm)Width: 60 in (152.4 cm)Depth: 19.5 in (49.53 cm)
Sold As:
Set of 2
Place of Origin:
England
Period:
19th Century
Date of Manufacture:
Circa 1867-1871
Condition:
excellent original condition, minor surface wear which is consistant with age.
Seller Location:
Sheffield, MA
Reference Number:
Seller: Cab 341stDibs: U1209108339706