AN EARLY VICTORIAN OAK CLOTHES PRESS by Gillows of Lancaster, and after a design by A W N Pugin, the rectangular top with moulded edge above a pair of frieze drawers and a pair of doors inset with linen fold panels and enclosing three slides and four drawers, on moulded plinth base, stamped GILLOWS, and the locks stamped VR below a crown, /R.L & CO. SECURE PATENT, formerly with superstructure

Details

AN EARLY VICTORIAN OAK CLOTHES PRESS by Gillows of Lancaster, and after a design by A W N Pugin, the rectangular top with moulded edge above a pair of frieze drawers and a pair of doors inset with linen fold panels and enclosing three slides and four drawers, on moulded plinth base, stamped GILLOWS, and the locks stamped VR below a crown, /R.L & CO. SECURE PATENT, formerly with superstructure
57¾in. (147cm.) wide; 48½in. (123cm.) high; 48in. (61cm.) deep

Lot Essay

This cabinet, with its Elizabethan 'linen-fold' panels, is designed in the William IV 'Old English' or gothic style created for the architect Charles Barry's New Palace of Westminster and invented by Augustus Welby Pugin (d. 1852), architect and author of Gothic Furniture of the 15th Century, 1835. Pugin's 'New Palace' furniture patterns date from 1844; and Messrs. Gillows of London and Lancaster were amongst the firms that obtained the contract for supplying furniture. The cabinet's linen-fold carving is a more elaborate version of that featured in Gillow's related wardrobe design of 1852, which features in the company archives at the Westminster Publish Library (Estimate Sketch Books for 3 April 1852 no. 5832). The foliated escutcheons of tinned-iron were supplied by Messrs. Hardman and Iliffe of Birmingham

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