Display panel containing sample furniture fittings, copper, brass and electroplate set in a wooden frame, Liverpool, ca.1900-06, designed and made by Richard Llewellyn Rathbone.

This display frame contains 43 drawer handles, drawer pulls and escutcheons, in copper, brass and electroplate. They have been fashioned by hand in a style that falls fully within the parameters of the Arts and Crafts movement. Common features are loop handles attached to a back plate either cut or pierced in an abstract, naturalistic style or more simply, in the shape of an attenuated lozenge. The central drawer pull, of repoussé copper, has embossed circular decoration with linear, embossed lozenges forming the borders along the top and bottom edge. All handles are invariably fixed by a simple loop which is attached to the back plate by either rivets or screws. Each individual piece is stamped Rathbone followed by an individual serial number. All are secured to a wooden back panel painted in a matt, yellow colour. The front panel of this display cabinet is glazed and hinged along the top.

Given by Mark Birkett

Richard Llewellyn Rathbone (1864-1939) was a designer and metalworker. His cousin was Harold Rathbone, Head of the Della Robbia Pottery and he was related to W.A.S. Benson. He produced metalwork for Mackmurdo, Heywood Summner and C.F.A. Voysey. He set up a workshop in Liverpool and also taught the metalwork class at the university (ca.1898-1903) where he was joined in 1903 by Harold Stabler. In 1905 he came to London to take up the post of Head of the Art School of the Sir John Cass Institute. He also taught at the LCC Central School of Arts and Crafts. He worked mostly in base metals, but also made a certain number of pieces of jewellery, some of which were shown at the Arts and Crafts Society exhibition in 1906.

M.22-1979