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Lot Essay
The richly flowered cabinet is designed in the ancient Gothic fashion associated with the architect A.W.N. Pugin's 'New Palace of Westminster' embellishments. Its chamfered and rose-carved pillars initialled with Gothic 'R' tablets is inlaid with a 'JR' medallion. It is likely to have been supplied by John Gregory Crace (d. 1889) of the Wigmore Street firm of Crace and Son, 'House Painters and Decorators' to Queen Victoria and relates to his 'Westminster' decorations of the 1840s.
In view of the initials, it is possible that this cabinet was designed for J. Scott Russell for whom the firm worked over a number of years, particularly in the decorations of his ships the Pacific and The Great Eastern in the 1850s and 1860s (M. Aldrich, The Craces: Royal Decorators 1768-1899, Over Wallop, 1990, pp. 99-100).
This cabinet relates to a cabinet supplied by the Craces in the 1850s for James Watts of Abney Hall (R.W. Symonds and B.B.Whineray, Victorian Furniture, London, 1962, p. 117, fig. 39). In particular its inlaid decoration relates to that of a card-table designed by John Diblee Crace in 1866 for William Gibbs of Tyntesfield, Somerset (sold The Cleveland Sale Rooms, Bristol, 23 November 1995).
In view of the initials, it is possible that this cabinet was designed for J. Scott Russell for whom the firm worked over a number of years, particularly in the decorations of his ships the Pacific and The Great Eastern in the 1850s and 1860s (M. Aldrich, The Craces: Royal Decorators 1768-1899, Over Wallop, 1990, pp. 99-100).
This cabinet relates to a cabinet supplied by the Craces in the 1850s for James Watts of Abney Hall (R.W. Symonds and B.B.Whineray, Victorian Furniture, London, 1962, p. 117, fig. 39). In particular its inlaid decoration relates to that of a card-table designed by John Diblee Crace in 1866 for William Gibbs of Tyntesfield, Somerset (sold The Cleveland Sale Rooms, Bristol, 23 November 1995).