Design: 1860 - 1945

Rare Stool by Charles Rennie Mackintosh Leads DESIGN Since 1860 Auction

24 October 2024

John Mackie

A stained oak Charles Rennie Mackintosh stool from Miss Cranston’s Argyle Tea Rooms smashed its pre-sale estimate to lead our £1m* DESIGN Since 1860 sale. The rare survivor sold to a UK collector for £81,450* after a raft of international bidding, joining the list of high prices we have achieved for this European design icon in recent years.

Combining English Arts & Crafts and Scottish vernacular design, Mackintosh produced several types of seating for the Argyle Street project in 1898 including his iconic tall back dining chair. The stools were only used in the masculine domain of the Billiards and Smoking Rooms, which occupied the building's top two floors. Just five are pictured in contemporary photographs.

The Argyle Street Tea Rooms closed in 1920 when much of the furniture was dispersed. This stool, that is illustrated in Roger Billcliffe’s catalogue raisonné of Mackintosh furniture, came from a private collection in Glasgow.

DESIGN Since 1860

View the full auction results of our October 2024 auction.

Our DESIGN Since 1860 auction, held live from Edinburgh and online on October 16-17, began with a single owner collection titled ‘An Aesthetic Interior: The Contents of a London Apartment’. “It was a beautiful collection” said Head of Sale John Mackie, “lovingly put together over nearly 50 years and knowledgeably and skilfully arranged in a ravishing period interior. Collectors from all over the world responded to the quality of the objects on offer”.

A roll call of designers and makers from the period were namechecked in these opening 148 lots.

Highlights among a selection of wares by WAS Benson included a 'Mistletoe' pattern chandelier c.1899 sold at £9,450* while the wares of William de Morgan were topped by a pair of large 15 x 23cm fish pattern tiles from the Merton Abbey period c. 1885 (£8,820*).

Sold for £10,710* – a collection-topping price it shared with a pair of Tiffany Studios bronze and favrile glass lamps - was an ebonised drawing room cabinet made c.1862 by the London art furniture specialists Cox & Sons.

The firm worked with many leading designers of the time including Bruce Talbert and John Moyr Smith who may have provided the series of polychrome and gilt painted panels that adorned a gallery frieze and two of the panel doors. The premium-inclusive total for the collection was £258,186*.

Sold for £9,450*

W. A. S. BENSON (1854-1924)

MISTLETOE CHANDELIER, CIRCA 1900

Sold for £8,820*

WILLAM DE MORGAN (1836-1917)

PAIR OF MERTON ABBEY PERIOD TILES, CIRCA 1885

Sold for £10,710*

TIFFANY STUDIOS., NEW YORK

PAIR OF LAMPS, CIRCA 1900

There were several fine examples of Arts & Crafts furniture, led by a beautiful and rare Arts & Crafts coffer designed by Henry Wilson which exceeded expectations at £16,380*. Made by Somerset craftsman W.E. Micklewright it had previously never left Norton-sub-Hamdon, the small village where it was made c.1920. The design featuring 12 panels carved with the signs of the zodiac is one illustrated in a surviving catalogue from the Micklewright workshop that ran for around five years until closure in 1925.

Sold for £8000* was an Arts and Crafts 'Daffodil' dresser designed by Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott. The floral roundels inlaid and painted to the two doors give the piece its name. This piece dates from c.1901, the year Baillie Scott moved from the Isle of Man, where he lived for several formative years, to Bedford where he could be close to his friend and collaborator, John White. At the time the dresser was crafted in White’s workshop, the Pyghtle Works, Baillie Scott was completing his architectural masterpiece, the Blackwell country house near Windermere.

An oak Arts and Crafts low side cabinet made in the Stanley Webb Davies workshop in the Lake District, signed and dated 1927, sold for £5,292* while there was plenty of bidding for a rare pre-war form by Robert ‘Mouseman’ Thompson - a bespoke games table dated 1936 that sold for £8,190*.

Sold for £16,380*

HENRY WILSON (1864-1934), W.E. MICKLEWRIGHT (MAKER)

ARTS & CRAFTS 'ZODIAC' CHEST, CIRCA 1920

Sold for £10,080*

MACKAY HUGH BAILLIE SCOTT (1865-1945) FOR JOHN P. WHITE, THE PYGHTLE WORKS, BEDFORD

ARTS & CRAFTS 'DAFFODIL' DRESSER, CIRCA 1901

Sold for £8,190*

ROBERT 'MOUSEMAN' THOMPSON (1876-1955)

GAMES TABLE, 1936

A group of pieces from the New Sculpture movement, including several bronzes from the estate of art historian Susan Beattie, was led by Gilbert Bayes’ An Invocation, which fetched £18,900.

This possibly unique 70cm bronze was exhibited on several occasions between 1902 (at The Fine Art Society where the plaster version sold for £40) and 1915 when it was sold by The Sculpture Gallery.

Sold for £7,560 was a rare Aesthetic movement silver pitcher derived from designs created by Christopher Dresser during his tenure as 'Art Superintendent' at the Linthorpe Art Pottery from 1879-82. The shape is likely influenced by Mycenaean or Cycladic pottery.

A handful of Dresser designs are known to have made the transition from pottery to silver although they may have been special commissions. This jug marked for William Hunter & Son (London 1881) has the engraved initials under the base ECS.

Sold for £18,900*

GILBERT BAYES (1872-1953)

'AN INVOCATION', CIRCA 1902

Sold for £7,560*

ATTRIBUTED TO CHRISTOPHER DRESSER (1834-1904)

RARE AESTHETIC MOVEMENT PITCHER, 1881

Sold for £16,380*

C. F. A. VOYSEY (1857-1941) FOR ALEXANDER MORTON & CO.

ARTS & CRAFTS 'FINTONA' DONEGAL CARPET, CIRCA 1905

A large 4.32m x 4.97m Arts and Crafts carpet to a design by CFA Voysey took £16,380*.

In 1897 Voysey had agreed a contract with Alexander Morton & Co. to provide designs for a minimum of ten textile designs each year for five years. Many of his carpet designs, including this one titled Fintona c.1903. were woven in the newly established workshop in Killybegs, Donegal.

Among the art pottery lots was one of Robert Wallace Martin’s much admired anthropomorphic bird jars being sold in aid of St Mary’s Music School Trust – dated to both the base and the head for April 1899 this 24cm model sold at £13,860* - while a remarkable price was achieved for one of the most innovative designs by the Amphora factory in Bohemia. Another version of the 26cm Bat vase, created by the sculptor and ceramist Eduard Stellmacher c.1905, is pictured in Monsters and Maidens: Amphora Pottery of the Art Nouveau Era (Byron Vreeland, 2011) where it is described as very rare. This example here in a cream, brown and mauve glaze raced away to bring £18,900*.

From a collection of French art glass was a small 14cm two-handled bowl by Francois-Emile Decorchement, the master of the pâte de verre or glass paste technique. This model, from an edition of just 16 made in 1909-11, proved the best of three pieces by the Conches-en-Ouches maker, selling for £5,544*.

Sold for £13,860*

MARTIN BROTHERS

'WALLY-BIRD' JAR AND COVER, 1899

Sold for £18,900*

AMPHORA

'BAT' VASE. CIRCA 1905

Sold for £5,544*

FRANÇOIS-ÉMILE DÉCORCHEMENT (1880-1971)

COUPE DEUX ANSES LAURIERS MASQUES, MODEL BC, 1909-11

“We are delighted with the results of this auction with strong prices across the disciplines, reflecting the strength in the market for early design. Sourced from all over the UK and Europe the sale attracted interested international interest and achieved a sale total of £1,014,346 with a pleasing selling rate of 81% by lot.”

John Mackie, Head of Sale

*All sold prices include buyer's premium.

An Aesthetic Interior: The Contents of a London Apartment

DESIGN Since 1860

Forthcoming Auction

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