British 1903-4 designed by Edward Lutyens.

Safe cabinet.

Accepted in lieu of Inheritance Tax by H M Government from the estate of Beatrix Cooper and allocated to the V&A, 2021

The safe cabinet was designed by Lutyens for Marsh Court, Hampshire, a house that he had designed for a stockbroker, Herbert Johnson (1856-1949). The house was built between 1901 and 1904 and Lutchens also designed stables (built 1905), a Great Room (built 1924-1926) and he also worked on the design of the garden with Gertrude Jeckyll in 1915.

Lutyens had been designing furniture from the 1890s and much of it turned to the exuberant baroque forms of the seventeenth century for inspiration. Architectural details in Marsh Court, such as the double-arched cresting of one of the bedroom overmantels, were echoed in the design of the safe cabinet. It also relates to some of the earliest pieces designed by Lutyens: the form of the stand is related to a walnut stand faced with vellum (private collection), illustrated in Lutyens: The work of the English Architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944), Exhibition catalogue, Hayward Gallery, London, (Arts Council, 1981) p. 78 no. 100, designed in 1896 to support a casket for his future wife Emily. The stand also relates to a pair of unstained oak dressing tables made in 1897 for 29 Bloomsbury Square, where Lutyens and his wife lived as newlyweds. The stretchers may be compared with those on a semi-grand piano, of which ten were made between 1903 and 1907, one of which is in the museum's collection (W.38:2-1984). The cabinet was designed to hold a safe (which survives), and to support its weight the legs conceal iron strips which form a supporting frame.

This cabinet was designed for the Hampshire home of Herbert Johnson (1856-1949), a stockbroker, adventurer and sportsman. Johnson had been impressed by photographs of another Lutyens house, Crooksbury, published in Country Life. Lutyens’ friend and collaborator Gertrude Jekyll introduced him to Edward Hudson, who had founded Country Life in 1897, and who became an ardent admirer, commissioning houses and furniture from Lutyens and featuring his most important houses in the magazine; articles about Marsh Court itself were published in 1906 and 1913.

Lutyens wrote to his wife on 25 March 1901, ‘Going to start Johnson drawings at once, and he wants me to furnish and do the whole thing garden and all, so that I had do a compleat [sic] scheme’. Architect (‘Ned’) and client (‘Johnnie’) became good friends and this familiarity, combined with Johnson’s deep pockets, enabled Lutyens to realise one of his most opulent designs, and his largest house to date, built at a cost of £150,000 (about £8.6 million today). The dramatic garden front of the house rises from a sunken pool. The exterior was built in the Tudor style of brick, flint and chalk (or ‘clunch’) drawn from the hard lower beds of the local river, the revival of a material seldom used since the seventeenth century. The late seventeenth-century influenced interior included Tudor-style chalk fireplaces, heavy plasterwork swags and a dining room panelled entirely in walnut, ‘like a box of Havana cigars’ (Jane Ridley, The Architect and his wife: A life of Edwin Lutyens [Chatto and Windus, London, 2002] p. 146). Stables were added in 1905, a Great Room between 1924 and 1926, and Lutyens also worked on the design of the garden with Jeckyll in 1915.

In 1905 Lutyens visited Marsh Court to discuss furniture with his client. Not all of Lutyens’ clients could afford furniture and fittings designed by the architect, however for Marsh Court he designed, as well as this safe cabinet, a billiard table built of solid chalk, and even built-in furniture such as the cupboard for warming plates, a cupboard for the electric fuse boxes and a bell board. Despite his sturdily protected safe, Johnson’s fortune, said to be £500,000 by 1900, was diminished by the Great Depression and he was forced to sell Marsh Court for £60,000 in 1932.

This cabinet was designed by the architect Edwin Lutyens and was intended to hold a steel, fireproof safe. In order to support the safe's weight (248 kg), the interior of the cabinet's stand was reinforced with metal braces.

It formed part of the fittings for Marsh Court, Kings Somborne, near Stockbridge, Hampshire, a house designed by Lutyens and built between 1901 and 1904. Marsh Court and its fittings were commissioned by Herbert Johnson (1856-1949) a stockbroker, adventurer and sportsman. However, Johnson’s fortune, said to be £500,000 by 1900, was affected by the Great Depression and he was forced to sell Marsh Court for £60,000 in 1932.

W.13-2021