Dressing Table
ca. 1873 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Suites of furniture, including a dressing table, washstand, bedside cabinet, chest of drawers, wardrobe, and some chairs, had become standard for bedrooms by the 1870s. This dressing table, which came from Eynsham Hall, Oxfordshire, was probably part of one of these sets, supplied in about 1873. James Mason, the wealthy owner of Eynsham Hall, commissioned designs for interiors and furniture from the architect and designer, Owen Jones, and the furniture for the main reception rooms was made by the firm of Jackson & Graham. It is likely that this firm also supplied suites of furniture for some of the bedrooms. While the dressing table is quite conventional in design, with the arrangement of mirror and small drawers fitted to a flat top above a pair of pedestals fitted with drawers, the combination of oak with teak and rosewood is less common for bedroom furniture and reflects Jones’s interest in combinations of native and foreign woods.
Returned from loan to Bodelwyddan Castle, National Portrait Gallery, Rhyl, May 2017.
Returned from loan to Bodelwyddan Castle, National Portrait Gallery, Rhyl, May 2017.
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | oak, teak, rosewood, mirror glass |
| Brief description | Dressing table of oak inlaid with walnut, with rosewood drawer knobs; designed by Owen Jones for James Mason of Eynsham Hall, British, ca. 1873 |
| Physical description | The dressing table, made of oak, has a flat top, with a mirror flanked by small drawers, and a base formed of a pair of pedestals with drawers. The mirror is arched and held on each side by shaped brackets; each bracket is fitted to the flat top of a set of two small drawers. The mirror and drawers are placed towards the rear of the flat top of the dressing table. Under this top is a central drawer between a pair of pedestals, each with four drawers graduated in size with the smallest at the top. The flat top, drawers, brackets, and mirror are inlaid with dark stringing, possibly in teak, and each drawer is fitted with two round knobs made of rosewood. |
| Dimensions |
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| Style | |
| Credit line | Given by the Ministry of Works (Southern Region) |
| Object history | This dressing table is one of the few surviving examples of bedroom furniture designed by Owen Jones for James Mason of Eynsham Hall. Jones's designs for Eynsham Hall are now in the Special Collections, Reading University Library, and the commission is discussed, and some of the designs illustrated, in Owen Jones Design, Ornament, Architecture, and Theory in an Age in Transition, by Carol A. Hrvol Flores, New York 2006. Although there is less information about the bedroom furniture than about those pieces supplied by Jackson & Graham for the main reception rooms, it seems likely that this firm would also have provided sets of furniture for the bedrooms. This dressing table may have been part of a suite of bedroom furniture, which may also have included a bed, bedside cabinets, a washstand, a chest of drawers, a wardrobe and some chairs. This dressing table was on loan to Leighton House, London, in 1969. |
| Historical context | James Mason, a mining engineer, and his brother-in-law, Francis Tress Barry, a merchant in Bilbao, established a company, Mason and Barry, which managed the San Domingo copper mines in Portugal from 1859. The success of this investment enabled Mason to buy the Eynsham Park estate in 1866. He commissioned extensive building plans and designs for interiors and furniture from Owen Jones and the work was finished shortly before Jones's death in 1874. After Mason's death in 1903, his son James Francis Mason demolished the house and replaced it with a new building, designed by the architect, Ernest George, which was completed in 1908. Jones's silks were apparently rehung in the new library and dining room. Eynsham Hall was used by the Home Office as a police training college from 1946-1981. The dressing table was one of several pieces of furniture from the house given to the Museum in 1954. |
| Summary | Suites of furniture, including a dressing table, washstand, bedside cabinet, chest of drawers, wardrobe, and some chairs, had become standard for bedrooms by the 1870s. This dressing table, which came from Eynsham Hall, Oxfordshire, was probably part of one of these sets, supplied in about 1873. James Mason, the wealthy owner of Eynsham Hall, commissioned designs for interiors and furniture from the architect and designer, Owen Jones, and the furniture for the main reception rooms was made by the firm of Jackson & Graham. It is likely that this firm also supplied suites of furniture for some of the bedrooms. While the dressing table is quite conventional in design, with the arrangement of mirror and small drawers fitted to a flat top above a pair of pedestals fitted with drawers, the combination of oak with teak and rosewood is less common for bedroom furniture and reflects Jones’s interest in combinations of native and foreign woods. Returned from loan to Bodelwyddan Castle, National Portrait Gallery, Rhyl, May 2017. |
| Associated objects | |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | CIRC.33-1954 |
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| Record created | June 24, 2009 |
| Record URL |
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