Liberty & Co Arts & Crafts Cotswold School English Oak Bureau c. 1920

  

Liberty & Co Arts & Crafts Cotswold School English Oak Bureau c. Fitness for Purpose and Pleasure in Use. An Arts & Crafts Cotswold School English Oak Bureau by Liberty & Co c. A very stylish bureau of fairly modest size, so perfect to store correspondence, stationary or office items without taking up too much space and adding in a lovely decorative touch.

Very well figured quarter-sawn English Oak (quarter-sawing is a way of sawing oak to produce boards with superior strength which also reveals decorative'medullary rays' in its grain). 2 plank cleated fall front enclosing pigeon holes and acting as a writing surface when down. Single drawer (made with single plank fronts solid drawer carcasses joined with hand-cut lap and through dovetails and solid bases). 2 overhanging side shelves and lower galleried shelf.

Overall Height 1230mm (4 feet and 1/4 of an inch). Overall Width 1000mm (3 feet 3 1/4 inches). Overall Depth 430mm (1 foot 4 3/4 inches). Drawer has an ivorine Liberty And Co. Label (matching figure 8.20, page 301 in'Liberty's Furniture 1875 - 1915: The Birth of Modern Interior Design' by Daryl Bennett, Antique Collector's Club 2012).

Very good condition with smoothly sliding drawer, tight joints, excellent rich colour and grain and overall very clean. Top lock does not function and filled contraction gap in the fall front. A few other minor marks and dints discoverable upon close inspection, less than expected with an item that has been in use for 90+ years. A Prestigious Company in the Design and Marketing of Arts and Crafts Furniture. Renowned for its imaginative design, high quality craftsmanship and famous London based retail location, it has produced some of the most desirable furniture of modern times.

The most British of woods, that can produce really special results. English oak has been used for hundreds of years to construct everything from sea-going vessels to fine furniture. Although oak grows widely across Europe and North America, craftsmen continue to cherish English oak which grows more slowly than its foreign counterparts giving it strength, durability. Quarter sawn boards are very straight grained and have distinctive growth rings and medullary rays that give a very beautiful effect as well as being renowned for their superior stability and strength. About Arts & Crafts Cotswold School.

The Cotswold School was a development of the Arts and Craft Movement started largely by Ernest Gimson and the brothers Sidney and Ernest Barnsley. The furniture is instantly recognisable with its simple lines, attention to the finest of details, and use of beautiful materials. Cotswold School designs were crafted from local materials using traditional tools and techniques and with decorative details derived largely from utilitarian elements: exposed joinery, unusual panels, interesting pulls and latches crafted either from wood or from metal using traditional smithing techniques, and close attention to form as well as to wood grain and pattern. Where decorative details were added they generally took the form of traditional embellishment such as exposed joints, chamfered edges and chip carved edge details. The style was embraced and developed by other designers and craftsmen including Gordon Russell, Stanley Webb Davies in Cumbria, Sid Barnsley's son Edward, Arthur Romney Green in Hampshire, Robin Nance in St Ives and Ambrose Heal are a handful of such men out of many.

The best developed their own style within the established tradition. Handicraft Antiques specialises in high quality Arts & Crafts Movement and Yorkshire School furniture from about 1900 onwards. Central to our philosophy is to sell furniture and furnishings that exhibit great design, outstanding quality of workmanship, are made with beautiful materials and are functionally useful and useable.

Many of our items will be of a similar cost to a modern mass produced equivalent, yet are likely to hold their financial value, or even appreciate over time, whereas inferior mass produced new items are very likely to quickly lose value. Our stock typically reflects some of the best designers and makers of their period including, Ernest Gimson, Peter Waals, Arthur Simpson, Stanley Webb Davies, Gordon Russell, Edward Barnsley, Liberty, Ambrose Heal, Robert Mouseman Thompson, Alan Grainger, Peter Hall of Staveley and numerous other craftsmen from the Arts and Crafts Movement, but also selected other items by less well known makers that are just beautifully designed and made.

There is of course a subjective element to describing the condition of items, so if something is not as clear as it should, be please ask for clarification. It's not normally possible or desirable to restore items to perfect as new condition, so unless otherwise stated you should expect items to have some character - small amounts of age related wear and tear, such as light scratches, tiny chips/dings, minor marks and slight colour variations. These won't detract from the overall appearance and are generally only noticeable on close inspection.