Design for a sideboard, drawn for Raymond Boyd Simpson and Co., ca. 1935

Design for an oak sideboard, drawn in pencil - an 'Elizabethan chest', with a platter and figure of knight in armour on top.

By the early 1900s the 'Elizabethan chest' (in fact most often a piece cobbled together from Jacobean fragments) had become an essential part of the furnishing of the tasteful suburban home. After the First World War the demand for such furniture was hugely increased by the building boom in 'Tudor' half-timbered suburban houses, resulting in the designing of reproduction pieces like this sideboard. It is loosely adapted from the design of a late-medieval chest, its historicising style being emphasised (as if it were needed) by the figure of the knight in armour. The London firm of R. B. Simpson & Co., who designed carpets as well as furniture, were capable of turning out ideas for pieces in a wide range of style, from historicist to Moderne.
[Michael Snodin, 'British Design at Home', p.109]

E.120-1981