This sideboard was designed by

Edward William Godwin Edward William Godwin (26 May 1833 – 6 October 1886) was a progressive English architect-designer, who began his career working in the strongly polychromatic "John Ruskin, Ruskinian Gothic" style of mid-Victorian Britain, inspired by ''Th ...

(1833–1886), who was one of the most important exponents of

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatur ...

Japonisme ''Japonisme'' is a French term that refers to the popularity and influence of Japanese art and design among a number of Western European artists in the nineteenth century following the Bakumatsu, forced reopening of foreign trade with Japan in 1 ...

'' or

Anglo-Japanese style The Anglo-Japanese style developed in the United Kingdom through the Victorian era and early Edwardian era from approximately 1851 to the 1910s, when a new appreciation for Japanese aesthetics, Japanese design and Culture of Japan, culture influe ...

, the appropriation of Japanese artistic styles. Japan began trading with the West in the 1850s, and by the next decade imported Japanese ''

ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art that flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock printing, woodblock prints and Nikuhitsu-ga, paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes ...

'' prints, Japanese ceramics and textiles were very fashionable in Britain. Godwin was influenced by interiors depicted in Japanese prints and by the studies he made of

Japanese architecture has been typified by wooden structures, elevated slightly off the ground, with tiled or thatched roofs. Sliding doors ('' fusuma'') and other traditional partitions were used in place of walls, allowing the internal configuration of a space ...

, but he did not seek to imitate Japanese designs. Instead his Anglo-Japanese furniture aimed to combine the more general principles of simplicity and elegance he admired in the art of Japan with domestic needs of the Victorian home. The

sideboard A sideboard, also called a buffet, is an item of furniture traditionally used in the dining room for serving food, for displaying serving dishes, and for storage. It usually consists of a set of cabinets, or cupboards, and one or more drawers ...

is stylish and dramatic, but it is also quite appropriate for use in a dining room. It is functional with drawers, adjustable shelves, and a rack fitted to take a large dish between the cupboards. The construction and finish are practical and hygienic, with hard surfaces and simple decoration, and the raised bottom shelf gives access for cleaning the floor. Godwin designed the first version of this sideboard in ebonised

deal In cryptography, DEAL (Data Encryption Algorithm with Larger blocks) is a symmetric block cipher derived from the Data Encryption Standard (DES). Its design was presented by Lars Knudsen at the SAC conference in 1997, and submitted as a proposa ...

, a cheap wood, in 1867. He subsequently changed to ebonised

mahogany Mahogany is a straight- grained, reddish-brown timber of three tropical hardwood species of the genus ''Swietenia'', indigenous to the AmericasBridgewater, Samuel (2012). ''A Natural History of Belize: Inside the Maya Forest''. Austin: Universit ...

, as he found deal to be unstable. At least ten versions of the original were made between 1867 and 1888, with differences in design, in decoration or in the number of legs. There are several surviving examples of this sideboard, made of ebonised deal, mahogany, or

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

and

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...

. The original sideboard was designed by Godwin for the dining room of his London home in 1867. Ten extant examples of the sideboard are known. As of 2012 seven of these examples are in the permanent collections of the Bristol Museums and Art Gallery, Bristol; Die Neue Sammlung, Staatlisches Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Munich; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; The National Trust, Wightwick Manor, Wolverhampton; The Florida International University, Miami Beach; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. One was gifted to the Art Institute of Chicago. Two other examples remain in private collections. One was auctioned by Phillips in 2012 for a price of $482,500.

Bibliography

* Hayes, Richard W. (2017). 'The Aesthetic Interior as Incubator of Health and Well-Being'. ''Architectural History''. 60: 277–301
doi:10.1017/arh.2017.9
ISSN 0066-622X. * * William Watt, Art Furniture from Designs by E.W. Godwin, London, 1877, pl. 6 * Paul Reeves, ‘The Anglo-Japanese Buffet by E W Godwin, Variations on and Developments of a Design’, The Decorative Arts Society 1850 to the Present, London, no. 18, 1994, 36-40 * Susan Weber Soros, ed., E.W. Godwin: Aesthetic Movement Architect and Designer, exh. cat., The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decoratives Arts, New York, 1999, pp. 239, 241 * Susan Weber Soros, The Secular Furniture of E.W. Godwin with Catalogue Raisonné, pp. 176–83 * 'The Best Of British, Design From The 19th And 20th Centuries, The Selling Exhibition', Sotheby’s and Paul Reeves, London, 2008, illustrated pp. 46–49

References

External links

{{commons category-inline Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum English furniture 19th century in England 19th century in art Individual cabinets