The Rex Britcher Collection
by the Knight of Glin
Dublin in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was the centre of an important furniture and cabinet making trade. The Act of Union of 1800 by no means curtailed this business but it had waned by the 1840's when the effect on the buying power of the Irish nobility and gentry of the disastrous Famine's took its toll. The imporation of cheaper foreign machine-made furnishings also had a considerable negative effect. Much foreign-made 19th century furniture in Dublin were affixed with Dublin trade labels. In the late 18th century there were nearly 300 names associated with upholding, cabinet-making, carving and gilding, looking-glass manufactories etc., but by the 1820s there were roughly half that number as proven by the listings in the Dublin Directories of names and occupations. The great Dublin houses were sold up after the Union and, though the professional classes continued to line in the major Squares, there was considerably less patronage. As we have said, the effects of the Famine and the later Land Wars of the 1880s saw the slow but inevitable breakup of country houses all over Ireland. By the early part of this century and the emergence of Ireland's independence, only a small number of country houses and their collections survived. It has been calculated that out of 2,000 houses, only about 100 or so still survive today with their original contents.
It is amusing to record in our Christie's context a visitor's 1791 description of a Dublin auctioneer, Mr. Wilson.
".. who may be called the Christie of Dublin. He pointed out the beauties of each piece with the most accurate discernment, and displayed a perfect knowledge of the fine arts. If I except Mr. Christie, the gentleman and auctioneer are happier blended in Wilson than in any other man of his profession, perhaps in the world. He possesses the talent of encouraging the sale in a familiar voice and language - judiciously avoiding those blustering climaxes and vulgar repetition, which adorn the orations of other auctioneers." (A Tour through Ireland by Charles Topham Bowden, Esq., 1791)
From the 1920s on, the Quays of Dublin were awash with furniture and pictures. Auctions were commonplace with firms such as Bennets, and Battersbys selling huge quantities of goods. Dealers such as the Dooleys, old Naylor who was succeeded by Ronnie MacDonnell, Butlers of the Quays, and many others were doing a triving trade and much of their goods exported as there were few native Irish with the means to buy.
Discerning buyers from England were attracted by rich pickings in the Irish trade. Rex Britcher, after his army career and world travels in the late 1940's, often visited Ireland in the company of his friend, George Furlong, where he bought much of the furniture offered in this collection. The two friends had a fine house in Thurloe Place, London, where their many treasures were displayed to great advantage.
George Furlong was the Director of the National Gallery of Ireland from 1935 to 1950. He had an exceptional eye for paintings and some of his notable purchases for the National Gallery included Gentileschi's David and Goliath, G. B. Castiligions's The Finding of Cyprus', a large Crespi and the only known painting by G.B. Passeri. These were the times when the annual budget of the Gallery was (1,00 plus a small trust fund. The Board declined some important contemporary paintings, such as Gauguin, a Monet, and a Roualt. When it also turned down Murillo's Christ Healing the Paralytic at the Pool of Besthesda which was then immediately bought by the National Gallery in London, Furlong resigned and moved permanently to London.
Rex Britcher concentrated on furniture and decorative objects. The pair of fine pier glasses (Lot ??) with Corinthian columns bears the Dooley of Dawson Street label. Even more interesting is Lot ??, another chiffonier with a Connemara marble top, turned support and brass banding of oak leaves. This banding is exactly similar to the decoration on a lyre supported card table in a collection in South West Ireland. In that same colleciton there is an elaborate grotesquely carved sideboard with brass "chain-like" banding identical to that on Lot ??, a shamrock decorated rosewood side cbinet with brass grilles. This side cabinet in turn is almost a twin to the pair sold at Coomore in Co. Cork in 1984. I suggest that the chiffonier and side cabinet are probably from a Cork manufactory. Little work has been done on Cork furniture but this inlay and a predilection for turned and rope decorated detailing seems to be very characteristic of Cork workshops.
George Furlong and Rex Britcher knew many artistic and literary people in London and Dublin. In Dublin Lady Fingall was a particular friend, Ned Maguire the collector, the brilliant dealers John and Putzel Hunt, the painters Joan Jameson and Nora McGuinness. In England, Harold Nicholson, Vita Sackville-West, the novelist Ivy Compton Burnett, and many others who gathered at their Thurloe Place house.
Rex Britcher who has long survived George Furlong still has some fine Irish pieces in his collection and has many memories of 'antiquing' in Dublin. Rex with a wry twinkle told me of thier visit to old Harry Wine in Grafton Street in the 1950s; Rex asked "Do you remember us? We bought a lot of things from you in the past." The grumpy reply was "Yes, and at too low a price!" One could only wish that Dublin was still so full of undiscovered treasures as in the palmy days of George and Rex's collecting.
Authorities:
1. Manuscript list of the Dublin Furniture Trade c. 1752-1840
2. The Knight of Glin "A Directory of the Dublin Furnishing Trade 1752-1800" in Decantations, A Tribute to Maurice Craig, edited by Agnes Bernelle, Dublin 1992.
3. Angela Cowhey "A Case Study of an Early 19th Century Dublin Cabinet-making Firm", a thesis for the Department of History of Art and Design, national College of Art, Dublin 1992
4. Obituaries of Dr. George Furlong, The Daily Telegraph May 11, 1987, and The Times May 28th, 1987.
An Afghan carpet
Details
An Afghan carpet
the brick-red field with four rows of stylised Kizil-Ayak guls divided by cruciform motifs, in an ivory border of hooked vine and hooked triangles between S-motifs and barber-pole stripes, a striped kelim at each end, small areas of slight wear, moth damage in one corner --244cm. x 218cm.(8ft. x 7ft.2in.)
the brick-red field with four rows of stylised Kizil-Ayak guls divided by cruciform motifs, in an ivory border of hooked vine and hooked triangles between S-motifs and barber-pole stripes, a striped kelim at each end, small areas of slight wear, moth damage in one corner --244cm. x 218cm.(8ft. x 7ft.2in.)