The Antique Furniture Company

Description

Victorian Mahogany Pedestal Desk, by Wylie & Lochhead

This good quality antique pedestal desk was made by the famous Scottish furniture maker, Wylie & Lochhead of Glasgow. It has the 'Wylie & Lochhead, Glasgow' stamp with the numbers 1 and 1841 impressed to the pedestal top.

It is made from a rich coloured flame mahogany with good grain and patina and can be used freestanding because the back is polished. The rectangular crossbanded mahogany top has a tooled black rexine inset writing surface with three frieze drawers below and there are a further three drawers to each pedestal. The drawers have turned knob handles and every drawer (a sign of quality) has a lock and brass escutcheon. The pedestals stand on plinth bases.

This desk is in good condition. There is some veneer loss including to the top, between the drawers and to the right pedestal. There are also some fade spots and chips out the base of knobs. The black inset top is in fair but used condition and we do not have a key.

As with all traditional pedestal desks it is constructed in three parts the top and two separate pedestals for ease of transportation and assembly.

The overall dimensions are approximately
Width 138cm wide (54 1/4in)
Depth 67.5cm (23 5/8in)
Height 75.5cm (29 3/4in)
Kneehole width 50cm (19 3/4in)
Kneehole height 61cm (24in)
No. of parts 3 (top and two pedestals)

Ref 0095

Robert Wylie and William Lochhead formed their successful cabinet making firm in 1829. By the 1880’s they employed over 1,700 people with workshops, showrooms and warehouses throughout Glasgow. By the turn of the century they had become a household name throughout Scotland for furnishing, artistic design and high quality craftsmanship.

They also had branches in London and Manchester and numerous agents and buyers across Europe and the Empire. This strong position allowed the firm in 1900 to move quickly to supply the emerging demand created by the designs of George Walton, the Glasgow Four (Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Herbert MacNair, Margaret and Frances MacDonald) and the success of Miss Cranston’s famous tea rooms. Indeed the sheer size of the firm with its huge marketing and manufacturing skills allowed it to make the ‘Glasgow Style’ truly popular and available to a large market.

They spared no expense to secure the best talent in the art market and, with the close association they had developed with the city colleges (there was a W&L prize for furniture design), they remained closely in touch with the stylistic developments that were taking place.

Wylie & Lochhead’s three key designers in this period were E A Taylor, who became their chief designer, John Ednie and George Logan. Indeed, the work of these three was of such quality that, at the Turin International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art in 1902, it was displayed alongside The Glasgow Four and other leading designers of the Glasgow Style.