This Waring & Gillows secretaire was commissioned by Queen Mary for her personal quarters aboard the Royal Yacht, the HMS Medina, for the 1911-12 India state visit.
Huw Edwards-Jones, master cabinet maker and liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers, spent over a month restoring and researching its royal connections. Among his finds were photos of the secretaire next to Queen Mary’s bed aboard the ship in 1911.
The 6ft x 15½in (1.83m x 39cm) piece is made from Brazilian mahogany and veneered in tight-grained ripple satinwood. A gilt brass maker’s plaque to the interior of the draw bears the inscription: HMS MEDINA, Used on the state visit of TM the King and Queen to India 1911-12, Warings, London. It is priced at £25,000.
Furniture by the Scottish designer and Arts & Crafts polymath Henry Taylor Wyse (1870-1951) does not appear often on the secondary market. However, this 4ft 2in x 5ft 6in (1.27 x 1.69m) decorated oak dresser with painted gesso decoration will go under the hammer in a Decorative Arts and Design from 1860 sale at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh on October 31.
The piece, which is guided at £4000-6000, was designed in c.1900 and made in collaboration with maker William Middleton (1838-1919) for the Scottish Guild of Handicraft.
Wyse’s decorated furniture, which combined fine and applied arts through his painted gesso panels, was inspired by firms like Morris & Co and designers Charles Robert Ashbee and Baillie Scott, who further promoted decorated furniture at the turn of the century.
