The Narcissus Wash Stand designed by William Burges, "painted by [Frederick] Smallfield (1865-7); later repainted by [Fred] Weekes (1872)" (Crook 339). Like the famous Red Bed and the Crocker Dressing Table, the wash stand was originally at Burges's home in 15 Buckingham St., off the Strand, then at the Tower House, Burges's Kensington home. Like them, it is painted red, carved, and stencilled with a good deal of delicate gilding. It also has a marble basin, inset tiling for the splash-back, and painted scenes at the top from the Narcissus myth, probably first done by J. A. Fitzgerald (Crook 340).
The painted panels.
According to Joseph Mordaunt Crook, the wash stand's "red and gold decoration picks up a theme from Chaucer's Romaunt of the Rose:
This is the Mirrour Perrilus in which the Proude Narcissus sey all his fair face bright.
Crook adds that when the wash stand was ("apparently") repainted by Weekes, "the lettering was renewed and border decorations added" (340). Frederick Weekes (1833-1920), one of Burges's team of artistic helpers, was son of the sculptor Henry Weekes.
The details, as usual with Burges, are fantastic, humorous and endearing: "Grotesque bronze creatures take on the duty of taps. The bronze shaving bowl boasts a silver frog. And Jennings’s patent tip—up basin is cut out of solid marble and inlaid with five gold and silver fish. These fishes may have been inspired by Carolingian prototypes from the Treasury of St Denis. But they are treated with typically Burgesian wit" (Crook 338). Despite its very practical function, this is indeed a typically characterful, lavishly embellished and quite unique piece of furniture. — Jacqueline Banerjee
Links to Related Material
- The Red Bed, with Henry Holiday's painted headboard
- The Crocker Dressing Table
- The Great Bookcase
- The Tower House, Kensington
Images provided by Simon Cooke, and reproduced here by kind permission of the Trustees of the Higgins Art Gallery and Museum, Bedford, which has a fine grouping of work designed by William Burges.
Bibliography
Crook, J. Mordaunt. William Burgess and the High Victorian Dream. Revised ed. London: Francis Lincoln, 2013.
Created 3 April 2024