Lot 190
An impressive Victorian silver coloured metal and parcel-gilt bed attributed to R.W.Winfield
11 March 2015, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £18,750 inc. premium
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An impressive Victorian silver coloured metal and parcel-gilt bed attributed to R.W.Winfield
The canopy surmounted by a crown and issuing eight tubular supports, the tester decorated with pierced strapwork including star motifs and surmounted by lotus leaf bud finials, the four columnar uprights chased with spirals of foliage divided by bands of trellis and punctuated by conforming collars, the arched headboard conformingly decorated and now mounted with a solid backing panel, the mattress frame of cast iron, bearing the registration of design lozenge, 204cm wide, 155cm deep, 296cm high (80in wide, 61in deep, 116 1/2in high).
Footnotes
R.W.Winfield was founded in 1829 at Cambridge Street, Birmingham and specialised in decorative metal beds. A brass metal bedstead in the French Renaissance style by Winfield was made for the Great Exhibition in 1851, (see D.M.Wyatt, .The Industrial Arts of the Nineteenth Century at the Great Exhibition, Vol I, plate XLIII, reproduced in J.Meyer, Great Exhibitions 1851-1900, p.33).
The Art-Journal Crystal Palace Exhibition edition described the bed as 'one of the best objects of its kind ever brought before our notice'. Similar decorative metallic bed pillars by Winfield are illustrated on p.242, which were described as 'good in design, and of a rich and handsome appearance'. R.W.Winfield came away from the Great Exhibition with a very coveted Council Award for the firm's brass dismantling armchair, only 174 of these awards were awarded in recognition of great ingenuity and innovation.
See Christies, London 27 June 2007, lot 250 for a mid-Victorian brass canopy bed made for Vittorio Emanuele II, King of Italy (1820-1878) by R.W.Winfield.