Footnotes

During the second half of the 19th century the partnership of cabinet maker Alfred Wright and decorator Thomas Mansfield became hugely successful. The company were the leading exponents of Adam and Sheraton Revival furniture and, as well as working for clients such as Lord Tweedmouth at Guisachan, regularly exhibited in the International Exhibitions in London, Paris and Philadelphia often winning medals for their furniture. Similar neo-classical decoration to that seen on the cabinet offered here is related to the decoration seen on a neo-classical side cabinet exhibited by Wright and Mansfield at the 1862 International Exhibition in London.

Wright and Mansfield were clearly aware of the marketing opportunities afforded by making 'Exhibition Pieces' and five years later they revealed a satinwood and marquetry cabinet inset with blue and white Wedgewood plaques at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1867 where it was the only piece of furniture to be awarded a gold medal. J.H. Pollen noted that in making this piece Wright and Mansfield '...avoid the production or copy of any foreign period and...illustrate English art in every respect.' It was eventually purchased by the Victoria and Albert Museum at the reduced price of £800 as a useful teaching object, as well as for its exciting use of light satinwood at a time when dark woods such as ebony were in fashion (Museum no.548-1868). Nine years later a pair of side tables by Wright and Mansfield were shown at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876 and illustrated in the Art Journal of the same year, together with a satinwood-veneered and painted sideboard which was described at the time as 'such an objet de luxe as was hardly surpassed of its sort at the Exhibition'. The side tables were sold at Sotheby's London on 26 November 2003, lot 120.

The company ended production in 1886 after getting into financial difficulties. In July 1886 the magazine The Cabinet Maker & Art Furnisher summed up their contribution when it said: 'They must be accounted the leaders of that passing fashion which has happily brought back into our houses many of the charming shapes of the renowned eighteenth century cabinet makers .... the best forms of Chippendale, Hepplewhite and particularly Sheraton have been made to live again under the renovating influence of these able manufacturers'.