1
/
20
POA
Walford & Donkin. A high Gothic Revival oak armchair with carved and fretwork sides for The Art Furniture Company who were an architectural interior and furniture design partnership at 25 Garrick Street.
Seat height: 42.5 cm
Arm height: 62 cm
The Illustrated London News on the 17th June 1867 wrote:, The Art Furniture Company was 'prepared to supply at ordinary trade prices, domestic furniture of an artistic and picturesque character, designs by C L Eastlake, A W Blomfield, and E W Godwin and other architects'. Eastlake's Hints on Household Taste of 1868 featured a cabinet designed by him and exhibited by Heaton, Butler & Bayne but probably made by the Art Furniture Co. Godwin designed 16 pieces of furniture for the firm in Japanese and Gothic Revival styles. His Anglo-Japanese buffet (illus. Soros (1999), CR 304-a) was executed by AFC as were some of his Gothic revival chairs for Dromore Castle, including the eagle chair (Soros (1999), CR 114). The firm's work was illustrated in the Building News (24 December 1868) in a feature on the furniture designed by architects Walford and Donkin, which showed items with ebonized timbers, fretwork and stencilling. The Building News, 29 December 1871, illustrated Godwin's design of The Florence Cabinet, dated 1867, for the Art Furniture Company (Edwards, (2022), p. 22). The company only lasted two years 1867/68.
