A rectangular, horizontal panel of oak, carved and pierced with interlacing boughs and foliage. Originally forming part of a frieze above the chimneypiece in the drawing-room at Lululaund, the house at Bushey designed by the artist Hubert Herkomer for his own use.

Frieze panel, one of a pair, of carved and pierced oak, showing interlaced boughs and foliage. Originally forming a frieze above the chimneypiece in the Drawing Room at Lululaund, the house designed by the artist for his own use at Bushey, Hertfordshire

Designed by the painter Sir Hubert Herkomer (1849-1914) for his house, Lululaund, near Bushey, Hertfordshire, 1885-1894. The panel was carved either by his father, Lorenz, or by his uncle Johann, or under their supervision by an unknown carver working on the house.

This panel was purchased (with other fragments from Lululaund, W.20 to 24-1980) from a Mr Donald Hay, who had acquired them from an elderly cousin, Miss Hannah Braithwaite, of Bradford. There is no record of how they had come into her possession. The Nominal File for the acquisition is numbered MA/1/H1851. At the time of acquisition the responsible curator, Simon Jervis, described the carving as 'vegetative, proto-Art Nouveau, late Gothic, which is at once very German and very Richardsonian' (referring to H.H. Richardson, the architect who designed Lululaund.

The pierced panel derives from Gothic designs of the early 16th century. Similar forms were used in areas of Germany and Switzerland in the early 16th century, as illustrated by a multi-drawered cabinet, originally made c. 1518 for the offices of the Dom at Basel, is in the Historisches Museum Basel (inv. no. 1906.1121), illustrated in Stefan Hess and Wolfgang Loescher, Möbel in Basel. Kunst und Handwerk der Schreiner bis 1798 (Basel, 2012), cat. no. 12

Carved to the design of Sir Hubert Herkomer by his father Lorenz Herkomer, his uncle Johann Herkomer, or one of their assistants.

This virtuoso piece of carving was originally in the drawing room at Lululaund, the extraordinary house in Bushey, Hertfordshire, built by Sir Hubert Herkomer (1849-1914) for himself and his family. Herkomer, an artist and Society portrait painter, commissioned designs for the house in 1886 from the American architect, H.H. Richardson, in return for a portrait and building was completed by 1894. The house was demolished in 1939.

Herkomer, whose family had been craftsmen in Southern Bavaria, Germany, designed the interiors and furnishings, many of which were made in the workshops he built in his garden. His father made the furniture and his uncle, a carver, created the carvings in the drawing room, working with two apprentices. The balustrade was placed above the ingle nook fireplace in this room, the decoration of which Herkomer described as adapted from the Gothic style.

W.20-1980