Display Cabinet. Designer: Edward William Godwin, 1833-1886. c. 1877. Ebonised Mahogany with Japanese pressed paper panels. 6 feet 3 inches; 185.5 cm. Width: 8 feet 4 1/2 inches; 255.5 cm. extended. Photographs 2018 George P. Landow. Courtesy Victoria & Albert Museum. Click on images to enlarge them.
The Sotheby catalogue for a 1975 sale describes a near-identical ebonised display cabinet as follows: "the superstructure with a pair of panelled cupboard doors, flanking open shelves, the lower half with a drop leaf at either side and one long and two short drawers above a shelf flanked by a pair of cupboard doors, with silver-plated mounts and handles throughout." That catalogue further explains that "Two other versions of this cabinet are known. One cabinet is in the Bristol Art Gallery and the version in the Victoria and Albert Museum is identical save that this [the Sotheby's] example lacks the pressed paper panels. The original design was executed in 1867 although it seems likely that the example in the Victoria and Albert Museum dates from 1877, when it appeared in William Watt's Catalogue. Liberty & Co. began to import the pressed paper from Japan in 1876" [Sotheby's catalogue, p. 27].
Left: Three-quarter view from left side. Right: Pressed paper panels. [Click on images to enlarge them.]
References
Important Arts and Crafts Furniture and Works of Art, English, Foreign and European Bronzes I 830- I930. Sale catalogue of 18 May 1975. London: Sotheby's Belgravia, 1975. No. 138.
Last modified 1 April 2018