CHRISTOPHER DRESSER (1834-1904)
RARE AESTHETIC MOVEMENT DRAWING ROOM CABINET, CIRCA 1875
£10,080
Auction: Lots 1 to 336 | 16th October at 10am
Description
ebonised wood, with glazed doors, traces of two original paper maker's labels for William Booty, London, two original keys
Dimensions
155.5cm wide, 214cm high, 46cm deep
Footnote
Literature: The Fine Art Society, Truth Beauty Power: The Designs of Christopher Dresser: The John Scott Collection, Exhibition Catalogue 2014, nos. 136 and 137 where cabinets by Booty with corresponding design elements are illustrated.
Lyons H. Christopher Dresser: The People's Designer, 1834-1904, ACC, 2004, pl.142, pl.256, were a cabinet of similar form illustrated.
Whiteway, M. Christopher Dresser 1834-1904, Skira 2001, p. 161, pl. 193
Note: Little is known about the working relationship between Christopher Dresser and the Notting Hill-based furniture maker William Booty. Booty’s workshops were 400 yards from Dresser’s home so it would have been convenient for Dresser to inspect the progress of his commissions. Several pieces of furniture were made by Booty for Dresser's great domestic scheme, Bushloe House in Wigston Magna, Leicestershire, and he was also a supplier to the short-lived Art Furnisher’s Alliance (1880-1883).
Only a handful of similar examples to the cabinet offered here are known: two formerly in the collection of John Scott and two slightly larger cabinets, one in the collection of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh and another formerly with Oscar Graf, Paris. The current example bears many characteristics of these cabinets including the arrangement of the doors with their Mashrabiya turnings, the scrolled finials and characteristic turned and blocked legs with arched bracket details in various configurations. Two wings added to each side extend the cabinet beyond the rectangular outline of the other cabinets. This example also differs from the others in its plain unadorned surface, in keeping with other examples found at Bushloe House and furniture retailed by the Art Furnishers Alliance. Each adhere to Dresser’s design principles with regards to furniture: utility, strength, simple lines and restrained ornamentation.