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Lot 9W
Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) 'The Pickering Music Cabinet' An Important Lost Work, commissioned in 1898
17 June 2015, 13:00 BST
London, New Bond Street£60,000 - £80,000
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Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928)
'The Pickering Music Cabinet' An Important Lost Work, commissioned in 1898
in stained Cuban mahogany enhanced with ebony cabochons and glass panelling, having a fitted interior with shelving, the original embroidered curtain reproduced by Helen McCook
177cm by 73.5cm by 51cm
in stained Cuban mahogany enhanced with ebony cabochons and glass panelling, having a fitted interior with shelving, the original embroidered curtain reproduced by Helen McCook
177cm by 73.5cm by 51cm
Footnotes
The original Watercolour (pictured) for this cabinet is stored at the Hunterian in Glasgow. It is also reproduced on page 57 of the Roger Billcliffe book 'Charles Rennie Mackintosh - The Complete Furniture, Furniture Drawings, and Interior Designs' (Lutterworth Press) and described as 'not known if executed'
The cabinet was commissioned from Mackintosh by Ellen Pickering, the daughter of John Anderson who owned Scotland's largest Department store. This was based in Argyle Street Glasgow, opposite Miss Cranston's Argyle Street Tearooms.
The essence of the commission is that it evokes a juxtaposition of Nature and Spirit. These concepts are captured in the meticulous construction, enhanced by a selection of different textures of clear glass with stalk and leaf emerging to flower.
The cabinet was designed when Mackintosh was thirty years old, and there are stylistic similarities to the organ casing in the music room at Craigie Hall Glasgow, designed by Mackintosh in 1897.
The cabinet was purchased without identification by a Dumfries family during the 1950's when a number of items belonging to the Pickering family were placed in auction. In 2012 it was removed from storage in Dumfries where it was housed in a garage.
