Princes’ Chamber chair designed by A. W. N. Pugin

Princes’ Chamber chair

Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852), designer

John Webb, London, maker

1847

40 x 18 ½ x 18 inches (100 x 46 x 45 cm)

Oak, carved upholstered in gold-stamped, red leather

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Commentary

The Palace of Westminster, rebuilt after the devastating fire of 1834, was the greatest secular Gothic commission of the age and marked a watershed in the commissioning of public buildings in Britain. Charles Barry won the competition to design the building in the Gothic style assisted by Pugin, who was responsible for the entire interior and much of the architectural decorative features of the Palace. As was often practice at the time, he designed the complete interior scheme, including furniture, tiles, textiles, and metalwork for lighting, door-handle hinges and so on. The building was not complete at the time of his death in 1852.

This chair, part of a set of sixteen, is from the Princes’ Chamber in the Palace of Westminster, which was completed by 1847 for a visit by Queen Victoria. The design was based on a engraving by Crispijn de Passe (1593–1670) from the Oficina arcularia, a suite of nineteen designs for chairs and tables published in Amsterdam in 1642. Pugin’s faithful application of De Passe’s design is testament to the effort made to produce a convincing ‘medieval’ interior. Various decorating and manufacturing firms were subcontracted to produce the furniture for this great commission. However, as one of the ‘very important’ items of furniture — described thus in Furniture in the House of Lords — these chairs were produced by one of Pugin’s favoured collaborators, John Webb of Bond Street.

References

Furniture in the House of Lords: Report by the V&A Museum, ordered by the House of Lords. Ed. Clive Wainwright, John Hardy, Shirley Bury and Simon Jervis. London: MHSO, 1974. P.12.

Gere, Charlotte, & Michael Whiteway. Nineteenth-Century Design: from Pugin to Mackintosh. London 1993, p. 49, pl. 40.

The Houses of Parliament. Ed. M.H. Port. Yale, 1976. P. 290, pl 10 [tracing of the original design], pl.191 [photograph of the Speaker’s Library from 1903 featuring the chairs].

Masterpieces from the John Scott Collection. London: The Fine Art Society, No. 23.

Whiteway, Michael. A. W. N. Pugin 1812-1852: An Exhibition Catalogue. London: The Fine Art Society with Haslam & Whiteway Ltd., 7-23 December 2011.

Last modified 24 May 2014