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Lot Essay
The design reform movement heralded by such aestheticians as William Morris, Charles Locke Eastlake, and E. W. Godwin in England, and Clarence Cook and Alexander Sandier in America represented a seismic rupture within the western design tradition. Rejecting accepted notions of classicism and revival, these reformers embraced a variety of Occidental aesthetic concepts and language while also turning to medieval traditions in an attempt to overhaul and redirect design and society. To the former end, Japan was the most widely borrowed culture and the Japanesque aesthetic of restrained unbalance and minimal decoration ultimately permeated all levels of design in England and America. To the latter end, the goal was twofold: to re-establish the primacy of the craftsman by employing the guild system over large industrialized factories, and to make beautiful furniture and decorations available to all levels of society, not just the wealthy. Ultimately, however, the materials and production methods chosen by promoters of the aesthetic movement resulted in some of the most costly goods created at the time.
This movement was embodied and produced for America by such firms as New York City's Herter Brothers, whose mark is stamped on the carved library table illustrated here. For the overall appearance of this table, the firm turned to the furniture designs of E.W. Godwin; the lush, overlapping leafy carving framing the top of the table, however, appears derived from the wallpaper patterns of William Morris, in particular his Diaper wallpaper of 1870. The end result is pure Herter Brothers in its balanced combination of disparate design references on a single furniture form.
The principle design source for the table illustrated here appears to have been a series of furniture patterns drawn by E.W. Godwin (1833-1886) and made by William Watts for the Earl of Limerick at Dromore Castle in 1869. These patterns include a side-chair whose juxtaposition of turned and incised elements balanced with voids and flower embellished masses is seen at the juncture of the legs and table apron here (see Aslin, E.W. Godwin Furniture and Interior Decoration (London 1970), p. 7, fig. 5); a games table whose extrapolated fret pattern appears as the stretchers of this Herter table (see Aslin, E.W. Godwin Funriture and Interior Decoration (London 1986), p. 40, fig.6). "Figure A" of the Godwin design "Drawings of Japanese Powderings or Crests' completed circa 1870 and presently in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, reappears as the repeating floral guilloche at the tops of the legs (see Aslin, 1986, p. 90, fig. 75). The aesthetic concept experimented with by Godwin at Dromore Castle was neither new to him, nor did he abandon it after his work for the Earl of Limerick. Godwin's designs for Northampton Town Hall in 1865 show the preliminary ideas for what he later created at Dromore Castle (see Aslin, 1986, p. 35, fig. 1) and his pattern for a Japanese chair made for the International Exposition at Vienna of 1873 (Aslin, 1986, p. 58, fig.27) show how he developed this particular design.
Godwin's work was exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876 as the Japanesque style gained momentum with mainstream America, yet the sophisticated firm of Herter Brothers was by then already fluent in the grammar and vocabulary of the design reform movement. A related sideboard made circa 1874-1878 now in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago illustrated and discussed in Howe, et al. Herter Brothers: Furniture and Interiors for a Gilded Age (New York, 1994), p. 50, fig. 31 demonstrates this, as does a side-chair made for Frederick Vanderbilt now in the collection of the Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site, National Park Service, Hyde Park, New York, and illustrated and discussed in Howe, et. al., p. 170 cat. 21. The Morris-esque carving of the table top illustrated here is related to the carving on two cabinets made by Herter Brothers between 1875 and 1880, the first of ebonized cherrywood in the collection of the High Museum and the second in satinwood from the collection of Sagamore Hill National Historic Site (see Howe, et al., pp. 178-179, cat. 26).
This movement was embodied and produced for America by such firms as New York City's Herter Brothers, whose mark is stamped on the carved library table illustrated here. For the overall appearance of this table, the firm turned to the furniture designs of E.W. Godwin; the lush, overlapping leafy carving framing the top of the table, however, appears derived from the wallpaper patterns of William Morris, in particular his Diaper wallpaper of 1870. The end result is pure Herter Brothers in its balanced combination of disparate design references on a single furniture form.
The principle design source for the table illustrated here appears to have been a series of furniture patterns drawn by E.W. Godwin (1833-1886) and made by William Watts for the Earl of Limerick at Dromore Castle in 1869. These patterns include a side-chair whose juxtaposition of turned and incised elements balanced with voids and flower embellished masses is seen at the juncture of the legs and table apron here (see Aslin, E.W. Godwin Furniture and Interior Decoration (London 1970), p. 7, fig. 5); a games table whose extrapolated fret pattern appears as the stretchers of this Herter table (see Aslin, E.W. Godwin Funriture and Interior Decoration (London 1986), p. 40, fig.6). "Figure A" of the Godwin design "Drawings of Japanese Powderings or Crests' completed circa 1870 and presently in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, reappears as the repeating floral guilloche at the tops of the legs (see Aslin, 1986, p. 90, fig. 75). The aesthetic concept experimented with by Godwin at Dromore Castle was neither new to him, nor did he abandon it after his work for the Earl of Limerick. Godwin's designs for Northampton Town Hall in 1865 show the preliminary ideas for what he later created at Dromore Castle (see Aslin, 1986, p. 35, fig. 1) and his pattern for a Japanese chair made for the International Exposition at Vienna of 1873 (Aslin, 1986, p. 58, fig.27) show how he developed this particular design.
Godwin's work was exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876 as the Japanesque style gained momentum with mainstream America, yet the sophisticated firm of Herter Brothers was by then already fluent in the grammar and vocabulary of the design reform movement. A related sideboard made circa 1874-1878 now in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago illustrated and discussed in Howe, et al. Herter Brothers: Furniture and Interiors for a Gilded Age (New York, 1994), p. 50, fig. 31 demonstrates this, as does a side-chair made for Frederick Vanderbilt now in the collection of the Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site, National Park Service, Hyde Park, New York, and illustrated and discussed in Howe, et. al., p. 170 cat. 21. The Morris-esque carving of the table top illustrated here is related to the carving on two cabinets made by Herter Brothers between 1875 and 1880, the first of ebonized cherrywood in the collection of the High Museum and the second in satinwood from the collection of Sagamore Hill National Historic Site (see Howe, et al., pp. 178-179, cat. 26).