From Sherwood Forest to Texas, an andiron story
A pair of 19th century lacquered bronze and wrought iron andirons designed by architect Edward William Godwin and manufactured by Hart, Son, Peard & Co. have been acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. This is the first time metalwork designed by Godwin has been bought by a museum.The dealer, Paul Shutler of Broadway, Worcestershire, UK, bought them from an antiques center in Connecticut last June. Before being placed on sale there they were in a private collection in the US. Theyre a long way from their origins in a stately home on the edge of Sherwood Forest.Edward William Godwin was an English architect and furniture designer who was one of the leaders of the Aesthetic movement in England and a pioneer in melding Japanese art with traditional and contemporary English style. Born in Bristol in 1833, Godwin was apprenticed to an architect and engineer right out of secondary school. He began working on commissions before he was 20 years old. He established his own practice in 1854, but his career really took off with his first large commission, the Northampton Guildhall in 1864.He started out as an adherent of art critic John Ruskins Gothic revivalism but by the mid-1860s was firmly ensconced in the Aesthetic movement. He was a friend and collaborator of James McNeill Whistlers in the 1870s, designing Whistlers Japanese-influenced home, the White House, in Chelsea.Godwin began designing his own furniture and interior from 1867 because he found nothing commercially available that suited his innovative Anglo-Japanese style. When he designed the 7th Earl Cowpers Beauvale House in Newthorpe just outside of Nottingham, in 1872, he designed much of its furnishings as well, even though he had leaned into the Robin Hood associations of the location and designed Beauvale House in Old English Revival style.Hart, Son, Peard & Co made all of the ironwork for Beauvale House to Godwins specifications. That includes the fireplace furnishings. You can see in this complete fire grate set from Beavale House has the same front guards and legs with the floral medallion tops, only the guards are all cast iron and the lacquered bronze has almost worn off the tops.That doesnt mean that the andirons now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston came from Beauvale House. Hart, Son, Peard & Co had been selling their cast and wrought iron architectural features (railings, balusters, lamp posts, gates) for churches, public buildings and homes in a catalog since 1970, and in 1873, they branched out to furnishings too. Godwins Beauvale fire set was listed in the 1876 catalog in several different finish options Berlin black and brass discs, Berlin black with bright dogs, or Berlin black all bright, in four different heights 18, 20, 22 and 24 inches. The Museum of Fine Arts examples are 22 inches high and are the bright dogs.
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