Important Arts & Crafts Presentation Cabinet by Voysey, Alma-Tadema & RAs

18199: Important Arts & Crafts Presentation Cabinet by Voysey, Alma-Tadema & RAs
By St John’s Wood Arts Club (British, active from 1862)
British, 1899–1900
Cabinet: Height 18cm, Width 27cm, Depth 38cm.
Case: Height 22cm, Width 31cm, Depth 43cm

Few objects embody a moment in history as completely as this one. Conceived by the Copyright Committee of the St John’s Wood Arts Club and presented in 1900 to the jurist Sir Thomas Edward Scrutton (1856–1934) in gratitude for his work drafting the Copyright (Artistic) Bill, this cabinet stands at the intersection of Arts & Crafts design, Royal Academy art and Victorian legal history. Designed by C.F.A. Voysey — one of the defining architects of the Arts & Crafts movement — and fitted with an elaborate silver and turquoise lock by the sculptor George Simonds, signed and dated 1900, the leather-bound wooden cabinet is itself a masterwork of applied art.

Within its eight glazed white maple drawers lies a unique group of drawings, watercolours and a bronze relief, each contributed by a leading member of the Club. The interior lid bears an illuminated address inscribed ‘To T.E. Scrutton from the Copyright Committee of the St John’s Wood Arts Club’, signed by Alma-Tadema, Dicksee, Edwin Bale, Alfred East, Solomon J. Solomon, G.A. Storey, W. Reynolds-Stephens, George Simonds, John Cother Webb, C.F.A. Voysey and H. Annesley Voysey as Legal Advisor, together with the monogram of T.E. Scrutton.

The cabinet contains the following works:

i) Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, O.M., R.A. (1836–1912). Portrait of a lady, probably the artist’s wife, Laura Theresa, Lady Alma-Tadema. Signed ‘L Alma Tadema’ (lower right). Pencil on paper, 28.2 x 20.3cm.

ii) Sir Frank Dicksee, P.R.A. (1853–1928). Portrait of a girl seated in a white dress, with a composition sketch (verso). Signed ‘F.D.’ (lower right). Pencil and watercolour, heightened with bodycolour, 29.2 x 21.6cm.

iii) Edwin Bale (1838–1923). A Holy Shrine by the Roadside. Signed ‘EDWIN. BALE.’ (lower right). Pencil and watercolour, 22.2 x 14.6cm.

iv) Sir Alfred East, R.A. (1849–1913). Trees beside a Lake. Signed ‘ALFRED EAST.’ (lower left). Pencil and watercolour with scratching out, 23.8 x 16.5cm.

v) Solomon J. Solomon, R.A. (1860–1927). Composition Study for ‘Equipped’. Signed ‘S.J.S.’ (lower left). Pencil and watercolour, heightened with bodycolour, 26.7 x 20cm.

vi) George Adolphus Storey, R.A. (1834–1919). A Young Lady Wearing an Ivy Wreath and Holding a Blue and White Porcelain Vase. Signed with monogram and dated 1899 (lower right). Pencil and watercolour, heightened with bodycolour, 22.6 x 14.6cm.

vii) Sir William Reynolds-Stephens (1862–1943). Law Defending the Citadel of Art. Signed and dated ‘W. Reynolds-Stephens 99.’ (incised lower right). Bronze and enamel, 20.3 x 12.7cm.

Previously in the collection of Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990), the cabinet passed through Christie’s, London, in 1971 and 2003, and was exhibited at the Princeton University Art Museum in 1981 and the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, in 1984. Surviving intact with every drawer, every work and every signature exactly as they were in 1900, it represents an unrepeatable convergence of Arts & Crafts craftsmanship, Royal Academy talent and Victorian artistic idealism.
$ 142,500