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Lot Essay
Cf: Charlotte Gere and Michael Whiteway, Nineteenth Century Design. From Pugin to Mackintosh, London, 1993, pp. 208-209
Jeremy Cooper, Victorian and Edwardian Furniture and Interiors. From the Gothic Revival to Art Nouveau, London, 1987, p. 170, pl. 439
Furniture History Society, Vol. XXXII, London, 1996, 'Three Tables by Philip Webb' by Giles Ellwood
Morris & Co. Pattern Book, p. 34, No. 558 (Later variant of the table by George Jack)
There are perhaps few tables that can offer greater interest to lovers of antiquity and the romantic ages than Philip Webb's trestle-table. It is a masterpiece of the architect's eclectic furniture designs of the early 1860s and evokes ancient banqueting halls and parlours, and the England of Shakespeare and Milton. It can serve as buffet or dining-table, and be dressed with table cloth or carpet, or left with its rich coloured oak and its frame registering both massiveness and an air of lightness. It combines various characteristics drawn from the Elizabethan 'draweing' table or the Puritan's 'joint' stool, and the spirit of the antiquarian 'chaire-table' of Thomas Hardy's 'The Woodlanders'.
Uniting the craft of joiner and turner, its mottled board rests on a handsome moulded 'cornice' frieze, while its trestle-ends, of splayed and bulbous pillars, are stretcher-tied by arched beams with rustic 'spindle' balusters. These turned elements reflect the contemporary interest in Elizabethan 'thrown' or 'turned-all-over' chairs, such as the Ashmolean Museum's chair illustrated in Thomas Wright's 'History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments', 1862.
The table's inventiveness and construction is typical of Webb's deep knowledge of materials and workmanship gained from his decorative arts studies in the late 1850s. Indeed William Morris was to claim that he and Webb were amongst the half dozen people for whom the recently established South Kensington (Victoria & Albert) Museum had been 'got-together'. Webb and Morris were to collaborate on the decoration of the Museum's dining room. They had first worked together in the Oxford architectural offices of George Edmund Street (d.1881), where Webb was chief assistant at the time that Morris became an articled pupil in 1856. Two years later, following Webb's establishment of his own practice, his first commission had been Morris's Red House. Apart from his own practice, Webb served as artistic designer for the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., whose launch in 1861 was celebrated the following year at the 1862 Great Exhibition. This table is likely to have been designed at this period, when Webb was also involved in providing designs for Arisaig in Inverness-shire.
Following Morris & Co.'s move in 1865 from Red Lion Square to premises in Queen Square, Bloomsbury, George Jack became supervisor of their joiners' work. It was Jack, who later revived the 'Philip Webb' table, of which a reduced version noted as a 'Joiner's Table' featured in the firm's books. It was Jack, who also provided a fine summary of Webb's 'creative spirit'. Webb was 'before everything, a born craftsman, and might have been a great master builder and sculptor', if he had not adopted the medium of a pencil. Webb was an architect, who could 'design buildings in the Gothic spirit, true to facts of construction, true to ideas of beauty founded upon love of noble living..'. (W.R. Lethaby 'Philip Webb and his Work', London, 1979, p.232)
Jeremy Cooper, Victorian and Edwardian Furniture and Interiors. From the Gothic Revival to Art Nouveau, London, 1987, p. 170, pl. 439
Furniture History Society, Vol. XXXII, London, 1996, 'Three Tables by Philip Webb' by Giles Ellwood
Morris & Co. Pattern Book, p. 34, No. 558 (Later variant of the table by George Jack)
There are perhaps few tables that can offer greater interest to lovers of antiquity and the romantic ages than Philip Webb's trestle-table. It is a masterpiece of the architect's eclectic furniture designs of the early 1860s and evokes ancient banqueting halls and parlours, and the England of Shakespeare and Milton. It can serve as buffet or dining-table, and be dressed with table cloth or carpet, or left with its rich coloured oak and its frame registering both massiveness and an air of lightness. It combines various characteristics drawn from the Elizabethan 'draweing' table or the Puritan's 'joint' stool, and the spirit of the antiquarian 'chaire-table' of Thomas Hardy's 'The Woodlanders'.
Uniting the craft of joiner and turner, its mottled board rests on a handsome moulded 'cornice' frieze, while its trestle-ends, of splayed and bulbous pillars, are stretcher-tied by arched beams with rustic 'spindle' balusters. These turned elements reflect the contemporary interest in Elizabethan 'thrown' or 'turned-all-over' chairs, such as the Ashmolean Museum's chair illustrated in Thomas Wright's 'History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments', 1862.
The table's inventiveness and construction is typical of Webb's deep knowledge of materials and workmanship gained from his decorative arts studies in the late 1850s. Indeed William Morris was to claim that he and Webb were amongst the half dozen people for whom the recently established South Kensington (Victoria & Albert) Museum had been 'got-together'. Webb and Morris were to collaborate on the decoration of the Museum's dining room. They had first worked together in the Oxford architectural offices of George Edmund Street (d.1881), where Webb was chief assistant at the time that Morris became an articled pupil in 1856. Two years later, following Webb's establishment of his own practice, his first commission had been Morris's Red House. Apart from his own practice, Webb served as artistic designer for the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., whose launch in 1861 was celebrated the following year at the 1862 Great Exhibition. This table is likely to have been designed at this period, when Webb was also involved in providing designs for Arisaig in Inverness-shire.
Following Morris & Co.'s move in 1865 from Red Lion Square to premises in Queen Square, Bloomsbury, George Jack became supervisor of their joiners' work. It was Jack, who later revived the 'Philip Webb' table, of which a reduced version noted as a 'Joiner's Table' featured in the firm's books. It was Jack, who also provided a fine summary of Webb's 'creative spirit'. Webb was 'before everything, a born craftsman, and might have been a great master builder and sculptor', if he had not adopted the medium of a pencil. Webb was an architect, who could 'design buildings in the Gothic spirit, true to facts of construction, true to ideas of beauty founded upon love of noble living..'. (W.R. Lethaby 'Philip Webb and his Work', London, 1979, p.232)