Lot 72
BRUNEL (ISAMBARD KINGDOM) AND LADY BENTHAM A late George III mahogany pedestal drawing table "made by the hands of the famous engineer Brunel", c.1830
Amended
23 March 2022, 12:00 GMT
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £4,845 inc. premium
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BRUNEL (ISAMBARD KINGDOM) AND LADY BENTHAM
A late George III mahogany pedestal drawing table "made by the hands of the famous engineer Brunel", the hinged and adjustable rectangular top with boxwood lined rosewood crossbanding and ebonised rounded edges, frieze drawer fitted for drawing implements with label pasted inside inscribed "This table was made by the hands of the famous engineer Brunel and was given by him to Lady Bentham, the wife of Sir Samuel Bentham by whom Brunel was educated [and in a different hand] Afterwards bequeathed by Lady Bentham to the Revd. Richard Norris Russell"), on a turned and twisted reed carved column with gadroon carved ring base, tripartite plinth raised on brass casters, c.1830
Footnotes
We are grateful to the ICE for pointing out that the letter included was written by M.H. Brown to the then Secretary (John Garth Watson, Secretary from 1967-1979) and not vice versa.
'THIS TABLE WAS MADE BY THE HANDS OF THE FAMOUS ENGINEER BRUNEL AND WAS GIVEN BY HIM TO LADY BENTHAM'.
Mary Sophia Fordyce, Lady Bentham (c.1765-1858) was a British botanist, scientist and author. She was daughter of the chemist George Fordyce, mother of the botanist George Bentham, and married the naval architect and mechanical engineer Samuel Bentham (1757-1831) in 1796, having known him and his brother Jeremy Bentham from a young age. It is becoming recognised how important a role Mary Bentham played not only in the writings and career of her husband, but also as all-round polymath and educator, one of her amanuenses being the young John Stuart Mill, who stayed with the Benthams for a year whilst they lived in France from 1814 to 1823, and on whom Mary seems to have exerted considerable influence.
"Mary Fordyce was clearly a clever and capable woman: according to her son, the botanist George Bentham, she 'had from an early age been accustomed to take a part in her father's writings' (Catherine Pease-Watkin, 'The Influence of Mary Bentham on John Stuart Mil', research article in the Journal of Bentham Studies, 1 January 2006). She published extensively on her husband's work and ideas in numerous journals, especially the Mechanics Magazine between 1844 and 1853, where over 130 articles appeared relating to Samuel Bentham. She also published in Quarterly Papers on Engineering, 1847-1848, including 'Paper on the First Introduction of Steam Engines into Naval Arsenals and Machinery set in motion thereby'; 'Enumeration of the Principal Inventions of the Late Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Bentham, K.S.G.'; 'On the Mode of Forming Foundations Under Water and on Bad Ground...'; 'Outline of a Plan... for The Improvement of the River Medway and the Port and Arsenal of Chatham'. She also contributed her own articles, papers and letters to The Journal of the Society of Arts, The Gardener's Chronicle, The United Services Journal, The Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal and the Builder.
Samuel Bentham, in his capacity as Inspector General of Naval Work at Portsmouth, came into contact with Marc Isambard Brunel around the time of his marriage to Mary. He was on the verge of manufacturing blocks for wood-working machines from his own designs when Brunel showed him his drawings, which Bentham immediately recognised as being superior. He recommended their adoption to the Admiralty and Brunel was commissioned to build and install them. By 1806, the year of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's birth, the 43 machines were in production and the method continued to be used for nearly 150 years.
The young I.K. Brunel soon showed that he had inherited his parents' mechanical and artistic skills, and under their tutorship he also showed a talent for draughtsmanship and an aptitude with tools. He attended schools in Chelsea and Hove, before being sent to France to study first at the College of Caen in Normandy, and then at the Lycée Henri-Quatre in Paris. He also spent a year as an apprentice in the workshop of the leading clockmaker Bréguet, after which the sixteen-year old Brunel returned to England, a year before the Benthams, to complete his apprenticeship with his father. Together they worked on a bewildering range of projects, including designs for a new rotary printing press, a copying machine, a system for making decorative packaging with tin-foil, paddle steamers, a mill for boring cannon, and two suspension bridges. Marc already had a sawmill in London, and Isambard assisted him in designing another for Trinidad. Both the Benthams and I.K. Brunel spent the remainder of their lives in London, Samuel dying in 1831, Mary in 1858, and Brunel a year later. The table is likely to have been made in the 1830s.
Provenance: According to the note fixed inside the drawer, the table was made by I.K. Brunel and presented to Mary Sophia Bentham. On her death in 1858 it was bequeathed to the Rev. Richard Norris Russell and then to his brother, who owned a hotel in Lyme Regis. On his death the business, and the furniture, were left to his hotel manager, and from her it passed down to her granddaughter, Thelma K. Embury, whose letter included in the lot confirms the Russell provenance.
In 1970 the existence of "a pedestal writing table made by Brunel" became known to the Secretary of the Institution of Civil Engineers, M.H. Brown, whose letter is also included in the lot. He then brought it to the attention of Cynthia, Lady Gladwyn, wife of the British ambassador to Paris, noted diarist and host to politicians. A great-granddaughter of I.K. Brunel, she had given a lecture at the Institution on the name Isambard and its origins, and the table was duly sold to her in 1971 with Brown as intermediary, thus returning it to the family over 120 years later. It is being sold on behalf of the granddaughter of Lady Gladwyn.
Saleroom notices
We are grateful to the ICE for pointing out that the letter included was written by M.H. Brown to the then Secretary (John Garth Watson, Secretary from 1967-1979) and not vice versa.
Additional information
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