Details
An important William Watt oak buffet designed by E.W. Godwin, the rectangular superstructure incorporating open shelves and recesses, supported on turned and square-section columns, the sides each with single panelled cupboard doors, the base with rectangular overhung top above frieze of three short drawers and panelled cupboard doors, on four square-section legs, the doors and drawers with circular brass pieces lock plates and loop drop handles
181.2cm. high; 129.2cm. wide; 49.5cm. deep
181.2cm. high; 129.2cm. wide; 49.5cm. deep
Further details
Max Beerbohm's well-known description of Godwin as 'the greatest aesthete of them all' expresses what has long been recognised: his key role in the Aesthetic Movement, as important in its way as that of Whistler of Wilde, both of them friends for whom he designed houses, interiors or furniture. He also goes beyond Aestheticism, anticipating the modern movement in his concern, incredibly advanced in its day, for economy and utility in furniture design. He wanted his furniture, he wrote in articles of the 1870s, to be 'as light as is consistent with real strength.' 'There were to be no mouldings, no ornamented metal work, no carving. Such effect as I wanted I endeavoured to gain, as in economical building, by the mere grouping of solid and void and by more or less broken outline.' As Malcolm Haslam points out in his article on the present pieces in Christie's International Magazine (May-June 1993), such values look forward to the teaching of Marcel Breuer at the Bauhaus fifty years later. Indeed Godwin's significance as a precursor of modernism was acknowledged by Pevsner in his Pioneers of Modern Design. Godwin's interest in furniture design stemmed from his belief that the architect should see a building as a unit, concerning himself as much with the decoration, fittings and furniture as with the structure itself. He expressed this theory in a lecture delivered to the Bristol Society of Architects in 1863, The Sister Arts and their Relation to Architecture; and endeavoured to put it into practice in his first important commission, the new Town Hall at Northampton, which he was currently designing. Powerfully influenced by Ruskin's Stones of Venice, the building was furnished and decorated by Godwin, and many of the furnishings, notably the mayor's and councillors' chairs, display an economy of means unparallelled at this date. His experiments were taken further when, following the death of his wife, he moved his practice from Bristol to London in 1865 and proceeded to furnish his rooms with pieces of his own design. With no-one but himself to consider, he was able to give them a still more radical lightness and simplicity, drawing inspiration from the Japanese art which he was already collecting in Bristol and had studied at the International Exhibition of 1862. Like his friend William Burges, another devotee, he recognised an underlying relationship between the art of the Middle Ages, to which he was committed not only as a Ruskinian but as a keen archaeologist, and that of Japan. As Burges put it apropos the artefacts displayed in 1862, 'truly the Japanese Court is the real Medieval Court of the Exhibition.' To quote Malcolm Haslam again, 'Godwin was an eclectic designer who believed that a new, modern style would emerge from a conglomeration of styles from different ages and different cultures ... (His) success in fusing the different styles that he used is due to (his) profound investigation of their basic principles, (and) it is perhaps for this reason as much as any other that his furniture has retained its innovative, modern character to this day.' Dromore Castle, County Limerick, the largest domestic scheme that Godwin was ever to undertake, was commissioned by the 3rd Earl of Limerick in 1865. The Earl (then Viscount Glentworth) had known Godwin in Bristol, shared with him a taste for Chaucer and other medieval authors, and was no doubt impressed by Northampton Town Hall. In the autumn of 1866 a site was chosen in wooded countryside high above Lake Dromore on land which the Earl had recently inherited, and on 29 March the following year the designs were published. The decision to build a fortified castle, though perhaps not unconnected with recent Fenian activity, reflected the two men's strong antiquarian interests; indeed, as Aileen Reid has shown, certain castles that Godwin had studied during a stay in Ireland in the later 1850s, together with the mainly ecclesiastical buildings at the Rock of Cashel, had a profound influence on the design. The castle was substantially complete by August 1869, and Godwin then set about the furnishings. These were comprehensive, embracing wall-paintings, sculpture, fireplaces, ceiling decoration, fabrics, tiles, stained glass and ironwork, in addition to furniture. Although the context inevitably dictated a general reference to medieval sources, a Celtic element was introduced and Godwin's feeling for Japanese art was much in evidence. For instance, the wall-paintings, some of which were carried out by Stacy Marks, featured sun motifs and peacocks. Fans and blue-and-white porcelain adorned the fireplaces, and the colouring throughout was delicate and restrained. This chromatic fastidiousness was echoed in the formal spareness of the furniture, which, like the pieces Godwin had recently designed for himself, showed a strong Japanese influence and were often remarkably modern in feeling. This is certainly true of the present examples. The buffet in particular exemplifies Godwin's aim of achieving his effect 'by the mere grouping of solid and void and by more or less broken outline.' As Malcolm Haslam observes, 'the outline of this piece is subtly interrupted by the rail on top and the framework in front of the upper cupboards. By throwing these cupboards forwards and extending the framework downwards to the top of the lower section, a void is created which plays almost as significant a role in the design as the two solid sections. In the washstand, too, Godwin has treated solid and empty volumes in a manner which might be expected of a 20th century sculptor, rather than a 19th century furniture designer.' The Japanese influence is revealed not only in terms of design but in the use of materials and construction. The washstand incorporates panels of plaited rattan, a material Godwin had already used for a dado in his own house, possibly finding inspiration in the 'specimens of Straw and Basket Work' which were included in the Japanese section of the 1862 Exhibition. For the furniture's joinery, the method of halving and pegging was employed, a technique that Godwin would later discuss in two articles on Japanese wood construction which he wrote for Building News in 1875. Nor does the Japanese influence stop here. To quote Haslam again: 'In one place on the Dromore furniture a feature characteristic of Japanese design has been employed to solve a practical problem. The shallow cupboards above the hinged leaf of the writing-desk have been given sliding doors; conventional doors, opening outwards, would have obstructed the arc of the hinged leaf below when it was being opened or shut - to have performed either operation the doors on the cupboard would have had to have been shut.' All three pieces are by William Watt of 21 Grafton Street, London. Godwin had first employed Watt in 1867-8, to make or re-make some of his own household furniture, and they worked together until 1885-6, publishing a catalogue of their 'Art Furniture' in 1877. In Watt Godwin found a cabinet-maker who could meet his exacting standards and achieve the level of craftsmanship found in the best Japanese work. So accurate and precise was the carpentry of the Dromore pieces that no glue was needed to strengthen the joints. The wood employed was solid oak, oiled, not varnished, as recommended by Charles Eastlake in his Hints on Household Taste (1868). The contract with Watts was signed in December 1969, and by October 1870 the building was complete, the final account being presented in 1871. But Dromore never quite realised the dreams of the Earl and his architect. Damp was to be its undoing. As Aileen Reid has written, 'The Fenians, perhaps daunted by the fortifications, left the Earl in peace, but the damp which had ruined Marks's attempts at fresco meant that "whenever it was going to rain...the walls showed it like a weather glass... because the stones suddenly got darker in colour." The Earl spent progressively less time there each year, and his son, who succeeded him in 1896, never lived at Dromore after about 1914. A less gloomy fate seemed possible for the castle when in 1940 a wealthy Limerick merchant, Morgan MacMahon, bought it from the 5th Earl. But in spite of "modernisations" the damp proved insurmountable, and Dromore was abandoned and its contents dispersed in about 1949. When, in 1954, no buyer had been found for the castle, the interior was completely stripped and the roof removed. In spite of attempts to dynamite them, the giant stone walls remain, and Dromore has become just such a romantic ruin as inspired its own design.'
For further information, see Aileen Reid, 'Dromore Castle, County Limerick: Archaeology and the Sister Arts of E. W. Godwin,' Architectural History, 30, 1987, pp.113-42; and Elizabeth Aslin, E. W. Godwin. Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1986.
For further information, see Aileen Reid, 'Dromore Castle, County Limerick: Archaeology and the Sister Arts of E. W. Godwin,' Architectural History, 30, 1987, pp.113-42; and Elizabeth Aslin, E. W. Godwin. Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1986.