CIRCA 1890, ATTRIBUTED TO GEORGE JACK

George Washington Henry Jack (1855-1932) was born on Long Island, New York, trained at the office of the Glasgow architect Horatio K. Bromhead from 1870, and worked with Philip Webb from 1880. He was a noted wood carver and inlayer, publishing Wood Carving: Design and Workmanship, 1903. He became Chief Designer for Morris and Company in 1890, remaining there after Morris' death in 1896 and then taking over Webb's architectural practice in 1900. One of his best known designs is that for a secretaire cabinet, also made by Morris & Co., one example of which is in the Victoria & Albert Museum (see Western Furniture, 1350 to the Present Day, ed. Christopher Wilk, 1996, pp. 178-9), and another from Ickworth was in the exhibition "The Treasure Houses of Britain", National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985-86 (see the Exhibition catalogue, ed. Gervase Jackson-Stops, no. 561, p. 629).