£23,750
Auction: Design Since 1860
ebonised wood, cloisonné panels, mirrored glass
Literature: Soros, Susan The Secular Furniture of E. W. Godwin, Yale 1999, p. 200, no. 320-b, where this cabinet is illustrated.
Provenance: Paul Reeves, London
Property from an Important Private Collection
Note: William Watt (1834-1885) established his upholstery business in 1857; it appears in the directories as William Watt & Co., art furniture manufacturers, 21 Grafton Street, London in 1860. The firm produced and sold some of the finest furniture of the Aesthetic Movement, including cabinets designed by Edward William Godwin like the present example. The cabinet is typical of the Anglo-Japanese style associated with Godwin’s designs. He often incorporated real Japanese artefacts into his work, shopping regularly in the 1870s at Liberty’s East Indian Art Warehouse on Regent Street, which stocked such items. This is possibly where the Japanese cloisonné enamel panels on the cabinet doors came from.