An Arts & Crafts Cotswold School English Oak ‘Lochleven’ Dresser designed by Leonard Wyburd 1889 for Liberty & Co. A large and very striking dresser from this iconic Arts and Crafts maker and designer. Featuring:

• Very well figured quarter-sawn English Oak for virtually every component (quarter-sawing is a way of sawing oak to produce boards with superior strength which also reveals decorative 'medullary rays' in its grain).

• Rectangular top made out of just three continuous pieces of very well figured quarter-sawn solid timber.

• Two lower doors with single plank fielded panels surrounded by rails and stiles joined by through tenons secured with pegs.

• Lower ‘dog kennel’ open compartment.

• Upper glazed door and open shelf.

• Very substantial handmade wrought iron fittings.

Approximate dimensions are:

• Overall Height 1850mm (6 feet and 3/4 of an inch).

• Overall Width 1840mm (6 feet and 1/4 of an inch).

• Overall Depth 560mm (1 foot 10 inches).

• Base Height 910mm (2 feet 11 3/4 inches).

c. 1910.

This design is illustrated in 'Liberty's Furniture 1875 - 1915: The Birth of Modern Interior Design' by Daryl Bennett, Antique Collector's Club 2012 on pages 114, 115 and 117. Examples of this design have sold at Chorley’s Auctioneers Modern Art & Design Sale 26 Apr 2022, lot 122 Cheffins Auctioneers Art & Design Sale 28 Oct 2021 lot 220 and at Sworders Auctioneers on 23 Jul 2002, lot 193.

Very presentable condition with excellent rich colour and grain, original finish, snugly closing doors, smoothly sliding drawers, tight joints, original keys present and locks working. A few minor marks and dints discoverable upon close inspection, although less than expected with an item that has been in use for around 100 years. If you wish to have further specific photographs or talk to us for a more detailed condition report then please do not hesitate to contact us.

A Prestigious Company in the Design and Marketing of Arts and Crafts Furniture. Renowned for its imaginative design, high quality craftsmanship and famous London based retail location, it has produced some of the most desirable furniture of modern times.

The most British of woods, that can produce really special results. English oak has been used for hundreds of years to construct everything from sea-going vessels to fine furniture. Although oak grows widely across Europe and North America, craftsmen continue to cherish English oak which grows more slowly than its foreign counterparts giving it strength, durability. Quarter sawn boards are very straight grained and have distinctive growth rings and medullary rays that give a very beautiful effect as well as being renowned for their superior stability and strength.

The Cotswold School was a development of the Arts and Craft Movement started largely by Ernest Gimson and the brothers Sidney and Ernest Barnsley. The furniture is instantly recognisable with its simple lines, attention to the finest of details, and use of beautiful materials. Cotswold School designs were crafted from local materials using traditional tools and techniques and with decorative details derived largely from utilitarian elements: exposed joinery, unusual panels, interesting pulls and latches crafted either from wood or from metal using traditional smithing techniques, and close attention to form as well as to wood grain and pattern. Where decorative details were added they generally took the form of traditional embellishment such as exposed joints, chamfered edges and chip carved edge details. The style was embraced and developed by other designers and craftsmen including Gordon Russell, Stanley Webb Davies in Cumbria, Sid Barnsley's son Edward, Arthur Romney Green in Hampshire, Robin Nance in St Ives and Ambrose Heal are a handful of such men out of many. The best developed their own style within the established tradition.