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Table

Ref: 1817
  • Designer

    After a design by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-52)

  • Detail

    Walnut

    72.4 x 116.9 x 66.1 cm

    Probably French, circa 1845

  • Provenance

    […]; acquired in France (Lyon?); H. Blairman & Sons; private collection, 2001-2024

  • Literature

    A.W.N. Pugin, Gothic Furniture in the Style of the 15th Centy, London: Ackermann & Co., 1835, pl. 35

    MEUBLES DANS LE STYLE GOTHIIQUE  / 15 [eme] SIECLE / dessiné par / Auguste Pugin… (Paris, 1844)

    H. Blairman & Sons, Furniture and Works of Art (2001), no. 5

  • Notes

    The design of this table is based directly on plate 13 of Pugin’s Gothic Furniture (see below).  Three factors, however, suggest that present example is likely of French origin.  The use of walnut and the construction are indicative of continental manufacture; the table was reportedly found near to Lyon, and the design was republished in a French edition of Pugin’s Gothic Furniture in 1844.

    Very little furniture based on plates from Gothic Furniture is known to survive.  British-made examples include an oak firescreen based on pl. 1 (see Fischer Fine Art, Truth, Beauty & Design, 1986, no. 29, and a rosewood library table, based on pl. 12; see Jeremy Cooper, Victorian and Edwardian Furniture and Interiors, London: Thames & Hudson, 1987, figs. 93 & 94. This table, later in the collection of John Scott, is now in the stock section of our website.

    There is considerable evidence for Pugin’s designs from Gothic Furniture being produced on the Continent.  On 19 November 1836 the broker John Coleman Isaac writes from Venice: ‘Before I left Fürth I ordered one of those large Gothic Arm Chairs out of Pugin’s book.’  There is only one armchair in Gothic Furniture (pl. 5).  Four side tables , based on the same design as the present table, were supplied by Johan Mann in 1846-48 for Schloss Rosenborg; see See Georg Himmelheber, Die Kunst des deutschen Möbels, III (Munich, 1973), fig. 647.  Himmelheber also illustrates designs supplied by Josef Wessicken in 1848 for Ashloss Anif; see, for example, Pugin, pl. 17 and Himmelheber, fig. 667 for an ‘Octagon Cabinet’.

    An American table based on the same Pugin design as the present table was offered at Stair Auctions, 24 October 2009, lot 17.