Lot 376
GEORGE LOGAN (1866-1939) FOR WYLIE & LOCHHEAD, GLASGOW
BUREAU, CIRCA 1901
Auction: Design Since 1860 Day Two | Thurs 15th October | Lots 246 to 524
Description
carved walnut, marquetry and mother-of-pearl inlaid panel, enamelled and glass panels, brass fittings, the sloping fall enclosing a fitted interior with leather writing surface
Dimensions
85cm wide, 132cm high, 49.5cm deep
Provenance
Possibly made for The Rosetti Library, Wylie & Lochhead Pavilion, Glasgow International Exhibition 1901
Footnote
Literature: The Studio, XXX, 1904, p. 202
V&A Collection: Accession No. W.23:1 to 3-1972
Kinchin J. The Wylie and Lochhead Style, Journal of the Decorative Arts Society, 9, 1985, pp. 4–16
By the 1890s, Wylie & Lochhead’s cabinetmaking business had become the largest in Scotland, producing furniture that ranged from avant-garde designs to more traditional forms. The firm looked beyond Scotland for inspiration and collaboration, commissioning leading English and Continental designers and manufacturers, including Liberty & Co., while simultaneously nurturing emerging Scottish talent. Its close engagement with the Glasgow School of Art kept the firm abreast of contemporary stylistic developments, and it enlisted graduates such as Jessie M. King, who designed wallpapers and may also have contributed furniture designs.
This breadth of approach was particularly evident at the Glasgow International Exhibition of 1901, where Wylie & Lochhead presented a series of interiors that brought contemporary design within the reach of a middle-class clientele. The firm exhibited work that toned down the more extreme innovations of designers such as Mackintosh, Herbert McNair, and Margaret and Frances Macdonald – the Four. Wylie & Lochhead was happy to embrace the ‘New Art’ styles where there was a commercial opportunity to do so.
Each of the four rooms was entrusted to a different designer: John Ednie designed the Dining Room, E. A. Taylor the Drawing Room, and George Logan the Library and Bedroom. Known as the Rossetti Library, a bookcase closely related to the present lot was designed by Logan and is currently in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. The bookcase shares many stylistic elements with the present lot, including its distinctive central-door inlay, carved details and drop handle. Butterflies, seen in the door panel of the bureau, were a motif popularised by Whistler and a recurring theme throughout the four interiors designed for the exhibition. In the Drawing Room, for example, they appear on the lamps, stained glass, furniture andirons, while in the Library they can be seen on the ends of the fireplace settles in the one known view of the room. The presence of these motifs and details on the present lot points to the possibility of it’s connection with another area of the scheme.
Today, Wylie & Lochhead is best known for the avant-garde work produced by its three celebrated designers; however, the comparatively radical interiors they created for the firm represented only a small part of its enormous and long-established output.