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Lot Essay
The floriated oak sofa-table, 'honestly' constructed with the pegs and tenons of the Joiner's craft, reflects the revived 13th century Mediaeval or Gothic style lauded as 'Early English' in Owen Jones's Grammar of Ornament, London, 1856, and promoted from 1860 by Richard Charles in The Cabinet-Makers' Monthly Journal.
The style was adopted by the architect and furniture-designer Bruce Talbert (d. 1888), who advertised the establishment of his London practice in the mid-1860s with the publication of Gothic Forms Applied to Furniture, 1867. It was also adopted in his design for the Exhibition buffet, which was a prize winner at the 1866 Paris Exposition Universelle, where it was presented by the distinguished Mount Street cabinet-makers, Holland & Sons, who had been granted the Royal Warrant early in Queen Victoria's reign.
The table represents Talbert's influence as a designer for Holland & Sons, and its trestles comprise hollow-arched pilasters, whose spandrels are richly fretted and 'Ornamented with a continuous stem throwing off leaves on the outer side, and terminating in a flower', such as featured in the embellishment of Wells Cathedral and was illustrated in Owen Jones's Grammar (p.103).
The style was adopted by the architect and furniture-designer Bruce Talbert (d. 1888), who advertised the establishment of his London practice in the mid-1860s with the publication of Gothic Forms Applied to Furniture, 1867. It was also adopted in his design for the Exhibition buffet, which was a prize winner at the 1866 Paris Exposition Universelle, where it was presented by the distinguished Mount Street cabinet-makers, Holland & Sons, who had been granted the Royal Warrant early in Queen Victoria's reign.
The table represents Talbert's influence as a designer for Holland & Sons, and its trestles comprise hollow-arched pilasters, whose spandrels are richly fretted and 'Ornamented with a continuous stem throwing off leaves on the outer side, and terminating in a flower', such as featured in the embellishment of Wells Cathedral and was illustrated in Owen Jones's Grammar (p.103).