An Arts & Crafts “Milverton’ design Cotswold School English Oak Dresser by Liberty & Co c. 1910. A large and very impressive dresser from this iconic Arts and Crafts maker and designer. A classic design that continues to endure. Featuring:

• Solid English Oak throughout.

• Very 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).

• Two lower doors with single plank fielded panels surrounded by rails and stiles joined by blind tenons and a central open recess.

• Single central curved front drawer (made with single plank fronts solid drawer carcasses joined with hand-cut lap and through dovetails and solid base).

• Two upper open recesses either side to two doors with leaded bottle glass windows.

• Hand beaten heart shaped handles (matching Bennett 8.41).

Approximate dimensions are:

• Overall Length 1920mm (6 feet 3 1/2 inches).

• Overall Depth 610mm (2 feet).

• Overall Height 1600mm (5 feet 2 3/4 inches).

c. 1910.

A very well known Liberty design shown on pages 263 and 4 of 'Liberty's Furniture 1875 - 1915: The Birth of Modern Interior Design' by Daryl Bennett, Antique Collector's Club 2012).

Good condition with smoothly sliding draw, snugly closing doors, tight joints, good rich colour and very clean. Some marks on the top, keys not present and various minor marks and scratches can be found on close inspection. 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.

A Prestigious Company in the Design and Marketing of Arts and Crafts Furniture. Renowned for its imaginative design, high quality craftsmanship and famous London based retail location, it has produced some of the most desirable furniture of modern times.

The most British of woods, that can produce really special results. English oak has been used for hundreds of years to construct everything from sea-going vessels to fine furniture. Although oak grows widely across Europe and North America, craftsmen continue to cherish English oak which grows more slowly than its foreign counterparts giving it strength, durability. 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.