Settle
Thomas Henry Kendall (1837 - 1919)
Category
Furniture
Date
1894
Materials
Oak
Measurements
82.5 x 175 x 47.5 cm
Place of origin
Warwick
Order this imageCollection
Standen House and Garden, West Sussex
NT 1213913
Summary
An oak hall chest / settle, designed and made by Thomas Henry Kendall of Warwick in 1894 for Standen. The chest with hinged lid and four-panel front, each panel carved with geometric and stylised floral motifs, surmounted by a row of ring-turned columns with rail forming a seat with arms, ball finials to each corner.
Full description
Thomas Henry Kendall (1837-1919) had been an apprentice in the studio workshop of James Morris Willcox and famously worked on the Charlecote Buffet, delivered in 1858 and still at Charlecote Park in Warwickshire. Upon the death of Willcox in 1859, Kendall took over the studio in Chapel Street, Warwick and appointed Charles Humphriss, a fellow apprentice, as his foreman. He would remain in post until retirement. The Kendall workshop undertook many major commissions, one of the most famous being the panels in the Members Dining Room of The Houses of Parliament (c.1874) depicting fish, fowl and fruit. Thomas Henry Kendall together with William Cookes & Sons, J. M. Willcox and Collier & Plucknett later became known as The Warwick School of Carvers due to their very distinctive style.
Provenance
In November 1894 Thomas Henry Kendall, Designer & Carver, Furniture Manufacturer & Upholsterer of Chapel Street, Warwick charged James Beale £16-0-0 'For designing and making of picked and well seasoned oak, a hall chest with carved panels and back and arms to the same forming a seat or settle'. (Invoice at WSRO MS337)
Makers and roles
Thomas Henry Kendall (1837 - 1919), manufacturer