A. H. MACKMURDO (1851-1942) AND SELWYN IMAGE (1849-1930) FOR THE CENTURY GUILD
SECRETAIRE CABINET, CIRCA 1870
mahogany, with marquetry inlay, the fitted interior with leather skiver to fall
57.5cm wide, 146cm high, 46cm deep
Provenance: Probably Henry Bodington, Pownall Hall, Cheshire
Literature: Evans, S., Liddiard, J., Arts and Crafts Pioneers, The Hobby Horse Men and their Century Guild, London, 2021, p. 117, fig. 5.30 (this example illustrated).Note: This piece was probably made for the drawing room of Pownall Hall in Cheshire. The Century Guild had already decorated the dining room of the property owned by the brewer Henry Boddington. This cabinet was likely designed by Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo and demonstrates the Century Guild’s preference for emphasising verticality over horizontal axis, while the roundel inlay designs by Selwyn Image express something of the Guild’s admiration for French Art Nouveau furniture by the like of Emile Gallé. The design drawings for the roundels are held in the collection of the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow (cat. no. A 194 a-c) and there is also a table similarly decorated with a tulip roundel (cat. no. G 39).The Saint Louis Museum of Art holds a related cabinet acquired from Paul Reeves (Stuart Evans, 'Putting Together the Pieces', The Decorative Arts Society, no. 31 [2007), fig. 14), and the Colchester and Essex Museum has a Century Guild box with similar inlay (Gillian Naylor, The Arts and Crafts Movement, Norwich, 1980, no. 38g).