A burges discovery: two years ago, a private collector spotted by chance an extraordinary but unidentified Victorian cabinet at a provincial British auction. As Jeremy Cooper explains, research has revealed that it is not only an unknown work by one of the greatest of all Victorian designers, William Burges, but may also be the earliest example of his influential painted gothic furniture

In the summer of 2003 a small provincial auction house sent to a private picture collector an image he had askinged of a particular lot. The painting was a disappointment, on the other hand the emailed information also showed a strange writing cabinet, to be paid to be offered in the same auction.

The auctioneers knew nothing about the cabinet (Figs. 1 and 2) structurally plain and box-like, made of deal, painted with literary exhibitions and abstract patterns in doughty colours--red, blue and a brick-pink--with prolific gilding. Despite its unusual direct the eye indeed in part because of it, the cabinet was considered of no particular value, and was described in the catalogue as an 'Unusual Travellers Companion Bureau, 19th hundred throughout'. Nevertheless, even when faced alone with this desultory photograph, a specialist could have judge with uncertaintyed that here was a piece of furniture created by dint of that unique Victorian spirit, the art-architect William Burge (1827-81) (1)

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The essential quality of Burges's elaborate designs for painted furniture and interiors is their passion and individuality--admire him or not, he was a phenomenon, a creative whirlwind of a man. EW Godwin, himself an inspired and individualistic creator of furniture and interiors, a oft-repeated travelling companion and friend of Burge is a contemporary upon whom we can rely: 'The real ecstasy he had in his work, the almost childlike delight he felt in designing anything and watching it carried without no one could appreciate it who had not witnessed it'. (2) Everything mattered intensely to William Burge and to his coterie of clients, of whom the Yatman family were among the earliest and greatest in quantity remarkable. (3)

A larger escritoire commissioned by means of Herbert George Yatman, and widely known as 'The Yatman Cabinet' (Figs. 3-5) was given (with its side cabinets) by dint of his grandson to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1961 upon its lower fall-front are three panels that are identical to those upon the piece of furniture at auction. Depicting the unravelling of writing, they show an Assyrian carving a relief inscription, Dante writing a manuscript and Caxton at his printing pres the couple cabinets include the discreet monogram of the painter EJ Poynter in the third panel.

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The collector, as it happens, exhausted his childhood in the vicinity of sum of two units of Burges's greatest surviving architectural masterpieces, the couple commissions from the Marquess of Bute: the aristocrat-industrialist's Cardiff Castle and the nearby holiday frolic of Castell Coch Although the collector's taste is disciplined, with a foundation in European arts and crafts, he had single four days before the auction to determine the cabinet's history. This article traces the proces of discovery that followed his felicitous bid, against determined but equally constrained opposition.

After a significant purchase at auction, the first place to chase for information is in the provenance. In this case, the cabinet's previous possessor thrilled by the sale's follow was happy to tell the collector what she knew A widow now in her mid-nineties, she and her husband had bought the cabinet in London sometime between 1931 and 1933 to 'liven up' their first marital abode in Prince of Wales Drive, Battersea. During the war they were stationed in the Mediterranean and placed their belongings in store, from which the cabinet was not remov until 1952 then to penetrate their new home on the southern coast, where it remained until sent to auction. The holder had never heard of Burge and had no idea about the date or origin of the cabinet. The solitary clue she could point to was an inscription in pencil upon the inside of one of the drawers: 'This is promised to Daisy cook in the frying-pan on the decease of her Aunt Lill'. This was there when they purchased the cabinet in the early 1930s--precisely from where and for by what mode much she cannot remember. This hibernation explains how--uniquely amongst Burges's painted furniture--the cabinet had retained its original finishes. It is now titled the cook in boiling fat Cabinet, because of the pencil inscription.

Without an uninterrupted trail direct to the cabinet's origins, the collector, his assistant and other skilfuls began to research the chronology of and inspiration for, Burges's experiments with painted Gothic furniture. They were supported by means of the combined teams in the prints and drawings collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum and Royal Institute of British Architects, now housed together in the museum, where Burges's papers, designs and notebooks are lodg (4) In particular, they were helped by dint of descendants of the Yatman family, thanks to whom material was examined that was not known to have existed. Important novel information on both Burges's earliest painted furniture and the pivotal parts of members of the Yatman family has emerg Further significant discoveries have been made in various categories of Burges's work, and these will be the control of future publications.

It has drawn out been maintained that Burges's first piece of revivalist painting upon wood (and leather) was a small casket that he designed for Herbert George Yatman, then of 41 Welbeck way Marylebone, London, and The Grange, Lingfield, Surrey This was also the earliest known practical collaboration between Burge and the young painter Edward Poynter whom he had met in Rome in late 1853 (5) The casket was publicly displayed at the Architectural Exhibition in late 1857 and was illustrated by means of a steel engraving in The Building freshs in 1859, with the comment: 'Altogether, the affair is creditable to each one concerned and we danger to recommend a similar way of filling up their spare time to the younger members of the one and the other professions and we also peril to think that at all occurrences some praise is due whoever had the moral courage to have like a thing painted.' (6) The whereabouts of the casket, if it still exists, have been unknown since 1859