ATTRIBUTED JOHN MOYR SMITH (1839-1912)

The design for these armchairs is attributed to well known illustrator, decorator and designer of furniture, John Moyr Smith. Smith illustrated a design for a pianoforte with nearly identical arched legs in the Building News of 1869. The firm of Cox & Sons (1837-1881) known for producing ecclesiastical and Gothic-revival furniture, enlisted leading designers such as Bruce Talbert, Edward William Godwin, and John Moyr Smith to design for the art furniture branch of the company. A conforming side chair with similarly incised geometric design by Smith was illustrated in an 1872 catalogue by Cox & Son, no. 89 (A. Stapleton, fig. 5).
A pair of armchairs of this design and potentially this same lot, with provenance to Edward Cecil Guinness, the Right Hon., The Earl of Iveagh, were offered Christie’s, London, 8 June, 1993, lot 112.
For side chairs of conforming design:
A. Stapleton, “John Moyr Smith 1839-1912”, The Journal of the Decorative Arts Society 1850 - the Present, 1996, no. 20, pp. 18-28.
A. Stapleton, John Moyr Smith 1839-1912, A Victorian Designer, Somerset, 2002, p. 29, fig. 36.