Ladderback chair with upholstered seat; Charles Rennie Mackintosh, about 1917

Mahogany ladderback armchair with ebonised front feet and uphostered drop-in seat

The guest bedroom (for which the whole suite was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh) did not originally contain furniture and decorations shown in the illustrations in Ideal Home. According to Mrs Cutting, a niece of Mrs W.J. Bassett-Lowke, the guest bedroom was originally furnished in mahogany inlaid with mother-of-pearl. This suite was in situ early in 1919 before she went away to boarding school; in 1925 she stayed with the Bassett-Lowkes again (shortly before their move to New Ways) and by this time the oak furniture had bee installed. In fact, the oak suite must have been made towards the end of 1919, or early in 1920, as it was illustrated in Ideal Home in 1920. McLaren Young was told of such a mahogany suite by Mrs Bassett-Lowke (ms. collection: Glasgow University), but his notes imply that it was made for her husband before he married and while he was still living at his parents' house. She said that he had sold it to a local furniture dealer, Mr Cave, when they moved to New Ways) because there was no space for it there. It seems likely that she was slightly confused about this suite, as the only dated drawing for it is of September 1917, after they had moved into Derngate; if the oak suite had been designed in 1916-1917, there certainly would have been no space for this mahogany furniture in that tiny house. The likelihood, therefore, is that the mahogany suite was designed first (it is certainly more in keeping with the main bedroom furniture) and that it was replaced c.1919-1920 by the oak furniture. Mr Cave left the original suite to his daughter (also a dealer) who sold it without recording the name of the new owner.

Stylistically, the mahogany furniture has much in common with the main bedroom designs. It relies for its effect upon broad unmodelled planes of timber, relieved by mother-of-pearl or aluminium inlay rather than the black edging applied to the perimeter of the sycamore pieces. It is also very similar in mass and outline to items designed for the main bedroom. Even the decorations appear to have been similar. No photographs of the guest bedroom survive, but the furniture was probably laid out in a similar way to that adopted in 1919. Photographs of an identical suite made for Bassett-Lowke's friend, Sidney Horstmann, for his house in Bath confirm this. Perhaps Mackintosh also used the more elaborate stencilling seen in the Bath commission at Derngate, but all the decorations were obliterated by the new scheme in 1919. The Horstmann furniture was reputedly made by German craftsmen interned as enemy aliens on the Isle of Man, and the Derngate furniture probably came from the same source.

Quoted from Billcliffe's catalogue, 1979 (pp.222-223)

Probably made by interned German craftsmen on the Isle of Man, Great Britain.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928), was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and became a leading architect and designer of the Glasgow School. This chair is part of a suite of furniture made for Mr and Mrs Sydney Horstmann at their house in Bath in 1917.

Horstmann was an inventor, manufacturer and engineer whose friend Mr W.J. Basset-Lowke had already commissioned Mackintosh to refurbish his Northampton house the previous year. The Horstmann's furniture is thought to have been made by German craftsmen interned on the Isle of Man during the First World War. It is likely that the earlier suite produced for the Basset-Lowkes came from the same source.

CIRC.590:1-1966