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'Table lamp'

Ref: 2702
  • Designer / Maker / Retailer

    Designed by Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo (1851-1942)

    Manufactured by George Esling (dates unknown)

    Century Guild of Artists (founded 1882)

  • Detail

    Bronze and copper (with glass and fitting for oil lamp)

    46 x 25 x 25 cm (base only)

    English (London), designed 1884

  • Marked

    Marked beneath the rim with monogram CG (interlaced, for Century Guild) and inscribed ‘M INV. GE FEC’ (for Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo and George Esling) – see below

  • Provenance

    […]; Reeman Dansie, 8 August 2023, lot 618 (described as an ‘unusual Art Nouveau bronze and copper jardiniere’)

  • Exhibited

    Perhaps exhibited at the Jubilee Exhibition, Manchester, 1887 (see below), where it was shown without the glass shade and funnel

  • Literature

    Journal of Decorative Art, 7 (1887), p. 173, for a view of the Century Guild stand at the Manchester Jubilee Exhibition, 1887

    Aymer Vallance, ‘Mr. Arthur H. Mackmurdo and the Centrury Guild.’, The Studio, 16 (1899), pp. 183-92, illustrated p. 191 (a lamp of this pattern)

    Gillian Naylor, The Arts and Crafts Movement, London Studio Vista, 1971, 3rd edition, 1980, fig. 38 e (for an example in the collection of the Colchester and Essex Museum)

  • Notes

    The present oil lamp and glass shade are period, but replaced.

    The lamp base now in Colchester (which Naylor suggested might have been used as a jardinière), may be identical with the one illustrated in The Studio.  The embossed copper decoration on the present lamp appears closer to the version exhibited in 1887.