Archibald Knox

Estimate

8,000 - 12,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

A rare and important oak sideboard by Archibald Knox
167cm. high by 206cm. wide by 46cm. deep;
5ft. 5 3/4 in., 6ft. 9in., 1ft. 6in.

the upper section with a shaped cornice above a pair of glazed doors with shaped moulded astragal bars and pierced side supports, the lower section with an extended top above a pair of double hinged cupboard doors enclosing an arrangement of open shelves and drawers with shaped handle pulls, with one key

Provenance

Given by Archibald Knox to Alfred James Collister R.B.A. A.R.C.A.
By descent.
Present Vendor.

Exhibited

'Archibald Knox: The Man behind the Art', exhibition catalogue, Manx Museum Winter Exhibition, 1999, number 39 (top part only)

Literature

Stephen Martin, Archibald Knox, London, 2001

Catalogue Note

Whilst the metalwork Knox designed for Liberty & Co. is relatively commonplace, furniture designed by him is extremely rare. This sideboard was given as a wedding present by Archibald Knox to Alfred James Collister and Gertrude Beatrice Ward, 24th July 1901, where Knox was Collister’s best man. This lot is also sold with a negative of a cabinet card, reproduced here, which shows Knox (standing) with the couple on the wedding day, which took place at Holy Trinity Church and then ‘The Elms’, the Ward family home, in Wimbledon, Surrey.

Knox had met Collister at Art School and left the Isle of Man to join him in 1897 as a part-time assistant teacher at the new Redhill School of Art in Surrey. He soon became a regular designer for the ‘Silver Studios’ in Hammersmith, an agency which provided anonymous designs to many firms, including Liberty & Co. with which Knox is so famously associated. Around 1899 Knox returned to Man and made hundreds of designs over the next few years which were produced in silver and pewter, before returning to Kingston Art School as Design Master.

Of the few known furniture pieces, an oak clock case with stylistic affinities is illustrated in Stephen Martin (op.cit., p. 238). Of more interest is the contemporary photograph of a bureau (illustrated in op. cit., p. 108), also part of the wedding gift given to Collister. Martin notes the bureau, and so presumable the current lot, was made in the Isle of Man by craftsmen at the Ballanard Brick, Tile and Terra-Cotta Works, Ballanard Road, Douglas, where one of the principals, a Mr W. J. Ashburner, was also a close friend of Knox.

At first glance it may appear that the top of the current lot is associated with the base but the sections were separated for many years and only now have been re-united. The timber match to the sides and unusual bracket to the base of the sides suggest the lower carcase may be correct. The base was adapted to house a music system for many years and another top, with hinged central access, replaced the original top shown here. It is possible that the cupboard doors to the current lot were also double hinged or replaced at this same time.

Caption:

Left to Right: A.J. Collister, Archibald Knox (best man), Florence Ethel Ward (bridesmaid) and Gertrude Beatrice Ward.