DESIGNED BY CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH FOR ONE BACK OF A SETTLE WALL SEAT IN THE DRAWING ROOM AT 14 (NOW 34) KINGSBOROUGH GARDENS, CIRCA 1900

The house at 14 Kingsborough Gardens in the west end of Glasgow was owned by a Mrs Rowat, a relative of Fra Newbery's wife Jessie. After Mackintosh's own flat at 120 Mains Street and Windyhill it was MacKintosh's only major domestic commission before The Hill House. Although the work, as at Mains Street, involved the remodelling of an existing house, it gave Mackintosh the opportunity of working on a large drawing-room, larger than any he was ever to design elsewhere. He covered the Victorian fireplace with one of his most dramatic creations and to one side of it inserted fitted settles along two walls. The backs of these settles were covered with stencilled panels, of which this lot is the sole surviving example. The same motif was also used on the lower parts of adjacent walls, while above settle and fireplace, and on other walls of the room, Mackintosh continued the floral theme with a series of wall stencils.
Kingsborough Gardens is the scheme where Mackintosh's organic phase of decoration grew and flourished. He designed several major pieces of furniture for the room, including armchairs and tables and two large display cabinets. Much of this furniture, and the theme stencil decoration, was repeated for the International Exhibition of Decorative Art in Turin in 1902 and also at The Hill House. Mackintosh was obviously very pleased with the designs for Kingsborough gardens as he replicated many of his pieces of furniture and his decorative devices in his house at 78 Southpark Avenue, to which he moved in 1906.

We are grateful to Roger Billcliffe for his assistance in cataloguing this lot