BY GILLOWS OF LANCASTER, AFTER A DESIGN BY A.W.N. PUGIN, CIRCA 1850

Pugin's passion for florid French architecture of the Louis XII and Franois Ier periods was also demonstrated by his publications of Examples of Gothic Architecture, 2 vols., 1834-1836, and Details of Ancient Timber Houses of the 15th and 16th centuries, selected from those existing at Rouen, Caen, Beauvais, by A. Welby Pugin, 1837. The chest's 'linen fold' panels corresponded to those of a door, which Pugin had drawn at Rouen; while its looped handles relate to a pattern featured in Pugin's 1837 publication. Related tin-plated fittings were supplied for the Palace of Westminster by Hardman and Company of Birmingham (Report by the Victoria & Albert Museum concerning the furniture in the House of Lords, London, 1974, pl. XI).

The restraint in the ornament of these bedroom apartment furnishings typify the 'plain' style that Pugin discussed with J.G. Crace of Wigmore Street in 1849 (A. Wedgwood, A.W.N. Pugin, London, 1985, p. 250, pl. 67 and No. 690). The firm of Gillow won the early 1850s contract for furnishing the Palace residences in Speaker's Court; while a related chest-of-drawers and writing-table now survive in the Lord Chancellor's apartments (P. Skipwith, 'The Lord Chancellor's Apartments', World of Interiors, July 1998, p. 109).