Brynmawr Furniture Company Arts & Crafts Cotswold School Oak Mirror 1930

An Arts & Crafts Cotswold School Oak Mirror by Brynmawr Furniture Company 1930. A very convenient size and excellent colour to one of Paul Matt’s classic designs. Featuring:

• Solid English Oak (except for the mirror back)

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

• Swing mirror with arched top

• Twin supports with typical Brynmawr stepped edges united by an arched stretcher

Approximate dimensions are:

• Overall Height 490mm (1 foot 7 1/4 inches)

• Overall Width 580mm (1 foot 10 3/4 inches)

• Overall Depth 190mm ( 7 1/4 inches)

1930

An instantly recognisable Brynmawr design, which can be seen in The Brynmawr Furniture Makers: A Quaker Initiative 1929-40, by Mary Eurwyn and Dafydd Wiliam, Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, 2012, on page 81

Very good clean condition with original finish and mirror plate. 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.

Brynmawr Furniture Company: An Arts and Crafts furniture making company founded by Quakers in Wales as part of the 'The Brynmawr Experiment', designed to revive Brynmawr's economic depression and accompanying mass unemployment. Most items were made to private commissions. Known for high quality workmanship and materials and clean modern designs

The most British of woods, that can produce really special results. Oak has been used for hundreds of years to construct everything from sea-going vessels to fine furniture. 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.