This is one of few examples of furniture used in a commercial premises in the Museum's nineteenth-century furniture collection. It formed part of a commission to remodel the entrance of the Fine Art Society, a leading gallery in Mayfair, London. The furniture and fittings were calculated to appeal to the clientele of the business, and helped to create an atmosphere of sophistication and comfort conducive to the viewing and purchasing of art.

Commission

The Fine Art Society opened its doors at 148 New Bond Street in February 1876. Its founders included William Longman (1813–77), of the publishing family, and Marcus Bourne Huish (1843–1904), a lawyer, editor, writer and collector, who became the first Managing Director. As well as exhibiting and publishing engravings by leading artists of the day, the gallery became a pioneer of the one-man exhibition, most famously that of James McNeill Whistler, whose First Venice Set of etchings was shown there in December 1880 (the collection of J. M. W. Turner watercolours owned by Whistler’s adversary, John Ruskin, had been shown in 1878).

In 1881 the Directors of the company commissioned the architect Edward William Godwin (1833–86) to redesign the lower part of the entrance façade. Godwin died in 1886, and the following year the Directors commissioned the designer George Faulkner Armitage to remodel the front section of the gallery interior. The resulting interior was rather like a gentlemen’s club. The walls were panelled in mahogany, with, according to one contemporary account:

'an effective wall graining for the beautiful etchings and engravings published by the Fine Art Society. The elaborately modelled frieze is in fibrous plaster made from a model Mr Armitage cut at his place [ . . . ] and the metal-work is all wrought in iron and copper in his own smithy by men who a few years since were ordinary shoeing smiths’.

The Fine Art Society continued to principally trade from 148 New Bond Street for 142 years until August 2018 when it relocated its London gallery. Following the relocation of the business, this armchair was one of four items of furniture – a table, this armchair, and two related armchairs – which were sold by the Fine Art Society. The carved mahogany fireplace surround designed by Armitage as part of this commission remains at 148 New Bond Street, which is now occupied by another commercial gallery.

Designer

George Faulkner Armitage came from a prosperous Manchester cotton family. After studying wood carving in France, Switzerland and Italy, he established, in the late 1870s, a studio and workshops at Stamford House, a former coaching inn in Altrincham where he also lived with his wife. The ‘Stamford Studios’ or ‘Stamford Works’ appear to have been run along the lines advocated by Ruskin and practised by Morris, for it was reported in 1891 that ‘the design and execution of wood, metal, plaster etc., go on fairly hand-in-hand’.

Armitage operated showrooms in Altrincham, Manchester and London, and was responsible for furnishing many substantial houses throughout England, commissions gained through his extensive Nonconformist connections, as well as a number of what he termed ‘semi-public’ commissions. Besides the Fine Art Society these included, in 1889, the redecoration of the Devonshire Club, London, Mansfield College and the Oxford Union smoking room, and the British Council Chamber at the Paris Exposition Universelle, for which he was awarded a gold medal. In 1903 the recently founded Österreichisches Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna, acquired a library table and armchair by Armitage’s firm.

Design

Armitage ran his business on a crafts system using traditional methods. Talented carvers who trained there included, in the 1880s, Arthur W. Simpson (1857–1922), a skilled craftsman who later worked with C.F.A. Voysey and, from the 1880s to 1890s, while the Fine Art Society furniture was being made, Joseph Phillips, who went on to carve the sculpture in the Lady Chapel of the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool.

Decorative and practical, the chair is sturdy and extremely well made – as testified by the fact it is in very good condition after almost daily use for 130 years. Armitage’s attention to good craftsmanship is evident in his writings:

‘I cannot say much more than advise you to have your various articles of furniture well made, of the best and hardest timber, that they may be strong enough to withstand this hard and trying life. Let none of your furniture be glued together, but firmly screwed and pinned, as you would make a boat. Use no paint, polish, varnish, or other finishing material that will perish in the wash, but let all your woodwork be hand-polished’.

The armchair is upholstered in modern woven horsehair, however, an 1891 article mentions that ‘the furniture is covered in silks and wool tapestry, woven in his [Armitage’s] own rooms to his own design’.

Armitage designed and made a number of variants of this armchair. The first, described as a ‘library’ chair, was published in 1883 and has two spindles supporting each arm as well as turned (‘barley-twist’) front styles. The Fine Art Society owned two chairs closely based on this design. A second variant, with turned legs, was offered by H. Blairman & Sons, London, Furniture and Works of Art, 1996, cat. 21. Examples of a third variant, with ‘fluted columnar legs’, were exhibited at Liberty’s, London (Arts & Crafts Design, 1850–1950, 2004, no.28; untraced). This armchair has seventeenth-century style ‘cup and cover’ legs, and three, rather than two spindles on each arm. It is arguably a stronger and more striking design than the other versions and is likely to be a refinement of the 1883 design. It appears to very similar to that illustrated by Thomas Raffles Davison in an 1891 article about Armitage's work for the Fine Art Society, and may be the same armchair.