Armchair
Barkentin and Krall (fl.1900-1930)
Category
Metalwork
Date
1877
Materials
Bronze, rock crystal and leather
Measurements
985 x 658 x 484 mm
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Tyntesfield, North Somerset
NT 10582
Summary
A cast and chased bronze and rock crystal armchair, 1877, by Barkentin and Krall, after an illustration of a 12th century chair published by E. E. Viollet-le-Duc in his Dictionnaire Raisonné du Mobilier Francais (Paris, 1858). The arched back is elaborately pierced and carved with a pair of opposing chimera and central foliate plume, above an eagle roundel with opposing hounds and turned uprights with anthemion and pine cone finials. The pierced arms on gadroon knobbed and turned supports are headed by rock crystal lion-mask finials on X-shaped supports centred at the front by a lion-mask roundel and with monopodia legs united at the sides with pierced panels cast with opposing birds and at the centre with a cylindrical knopped stretcher, elaborately pierced throughout with scrolling foliage punctuated by animal masks. Leather seat repaired with a similarly coloured leather patch support.
Provenance
Commissioned by Antony from a design by the celebrated French Gothic Revival architect Viollet le Duc illustrated in his Dictionary of furniture Dictionnaire Raisonné du Mobilier Français de L'époque Carlovingienne a la Renaissance. Purchased from the estate of the late Lord Wraxall with the assistance of the NHMF and donations from members and supporters.
Makers and roles
Barkentin and Krall (fl.1900-1930), goldsmith Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879), designer Barkentin and Krall (fl.1900-1930), metalworker
Exhibition history
Art and Soul: Victorians and the Gothic , Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, 2014 - 2015, no.64