Design by Albert Paley, for an iron bench commissioned by the Victoria and Albert Museum, photostatic print mounted on board, London, 1994

A perspective design for a highly-worked bench showing the forged and fabricated mild steel elements and the mahogany seating surface.

The sculptor Albert Paley was commissioned by the Victoria and Albert Museum to provide designs and then make a bench suitable for the new Ironwork Gallery in Room 114. The bench was made and installed in 1994, and given a museum number: M.11-1995. Paley first achieved prominence with an elaborate pair of steel and brass portal gates forged in 1974 for the Renwick Gallery in Washington DC. His subsequent work has been described as enlarged versions of the sculpted jewellery of his early career. His work draws on many traditions: Baroque, Art Nouveau, Modernism and even Space Age. The bench is a lexicon of Paley's understanding of decorative, patinated ironwork and the assymmetrical design is composed of a twisted, coiled hoop with secondary coiled elements incorporating decorative swagging. Extending from the coil and supporting the wood seating surface is a superstructure which includes a coiled and punched structure with tapered elements that penetrates a banner-like form on the far right. The backrest for the bench is a bundle of decorative forged elements.

E.2871-1995