DESIGNED BY BRUCE TALBERT, THE MANUFACTURE ATTRIBUTED TO GILLOW & CO., CIRCA 1875

This carved oak sideboard or side cabinet is after a design (illustrated preceding page) by the Scottish-born architect/designer Bruce J. Talbert (1838-81), published posthumously in Fashionable Furniture: a collection of three hundred and fifty original designs representing cabinet work, upholstery and decoration / by various designers; including one hundred sketches by the late Bruce J. Talbert, also, a series of domestic interiors, by Henry Shaw (c. 1881), plate 35. Another Talbert cabinet based on plate 36 in the same publication is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1988.346). Talbert was considered by his contemporaries as one of the most innovative and important designers of the mid-1860s to late 1870s; in 1876, the Furniture Gazette reported: ‘A work from the pen, or rather the pencil of Mr. B.J. Talbert is sure to deserve the attention of the artist in almost every trade’ (21 October 1876, p. 242). More recently, he has been described as ‘the first furniture designer’ (Muthesius, op. cit., p. 116). Furniture designed by Talbert was manufactured by most of the leading furniture-makers, such as Gillow & Co., and exhibited at many of the international exhibitions, such as: the Pericles sideboard, designed for Holland & Sons, exhibited at the 1867 Paris International Exhibition (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2015.281a, b); the Juno cabinet, made by Jackson & Graham, exhibited at the 1878 Paris International Exhibition (Victoria & Albert Museum, London, W.18:1 to 6-1981).

Talbert, whose early work was in the Reformed Gothic style as illustrated in his seminal and influential pattern book, Gothic Forms Applied to Furniture (1867), was a purist, an advocate of the finest grained timbers, usually oak, as opposed to veneers, with carved or inlaid decoration rather than painted ornamentation; in recognition perhaps of his early career as a wood carver’s apprentice (‘Industrial Biographies’, Furniture Gazette, 4 August 1877, p. 74). This cabinet is in the fashionable Jacobean Revival or ‘Old English style’ of the mid-late 1870s associated with the Aesthetic Movement, a style that Talbert adopted for his second book, Examples of Ancient and Modern Furniture, Metalwork, Tapestries, Decorations Etc. (1876). It was derived from Henry Shaw’s Specimens of Ancient Furniture (1836), which included English furniture dating from the medieval to late 17th century period from private collections. Although Talbert was not the first to introduce the Jacobean Revival into commercial design, he popularised it in Examples to the extent that his name is often associated with it.

The five remarkably finely carved boxwood panels to the back of this cabinet are closely related to the boxwood panels found on the ‘Pet Sideboard’, designed by Talbert and made by Gillow & Co. for the 1871 London International Exhibition (Victoria & Albert Museum, W.44:1-10-1953). The design for the ‘Pet Sideboard’ is featured in Examples, plate 31. The three central oblong panels on the backboard of this cabinet are a variant of those on the ‘Pet Sideboard’: in this example a stag, flanked by a swan and a pike. The carved pomegranate and vine panels to the lower part, together with the geometric roundels, are a reworking of those on the ‘Pet Sideboard’. Talbert’s designs for these panels are published Fashionable Furniture (pls. 41 & 42 - illustrated); the pomegranate pattern also appears on a wallpaper frieze designed by Talbert for Jeffrey & Co. (Victoria & Albert Museum, E.1880-1934). The geometric pattern on the coving relates to Talbert’s designs for diapers in Gothic Forms (plate 15), and the metalwork hinges on both the ‘Pet Sideboard’ and this cabinet are identical. Talbert published metalwork designs for ‘Old Examples’ of hinges and escutcheons in Gothic Forms (plates 41, 43) from which the metalwork on these sideboard cabinets derive.

It has been suggested that Talbert may have carved the boxwood panels himself (Levy, op. cit., p. 952). As discussed above, Talbert’s foundation included woodcarving, and in 1862, he worked for a short period for the cabinet-maker, Doveston, Bird & Hull of Manchester, and thereafter for Skidmore, which in addition to its metalwork operation had a cabinet-making section. Most of the leading London firms employed designers on a contractual or freelance basis; their reputation being enhanced through this association. A Gillow & Co. trade notice of 1868 states: ‘At the present moment some excellent specimens of Gothic furniture are to be seen at the premises of Messrs. Gillow and Co., 176 Oxford-street, from the designs of Messrs. Bevan, Talbert and Jefferson’ (Microulis, op. cit., p. 197).

Gillow & Co. almost certainly made a number of variations of the ‘Pet Sideboard’, and therefore it seems likely that they made the cabinet offered here. Gillows' Estimate Sketch Books for 1870-1874 (City of Westminster Archives Centre, No. 344/110-111) show that they were making versions of the ‘Pet Sideboard’, with different combinations of inscriptions, monograms, leather panels and carving, in March 1871; one example is in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia stamped 'Gillow & Co.', (accession no. D109-1976); another is illustrated in J. Cooper, Victoria & Edwardian Furniture & Interiors: From the Gothic Revival to Art Nouveau, London, 1987, fig. 189; a third example but stamped ‘Jas. Shoolbred & Co.’ on the frieze drawer, sold Sotheby’s London, 13th June 2001, lot 134.