Code: 10751
Extremely rare and important design piece by Gordon Russell, using high quality Cuban or Honduran mahogany with patinated brass rings on ebonised plates; Cotswold School BOOK cupboard of compact proportions c1925.
Superb fiddleback-cut mahogany used to great effect for the flush front of the cupboard. An early modernist transitional design with the Lygon Arms label dated January 1925. This is a very unusual and interesting piece, combining traditional Cotswold School exposed dovetail detailing to top and feet, with modernist Bauhaus style design, prefiguring many of the geometric concerns of later 1950s British design.
A companion piece, a boot cupboard was also designed that year and is illustrated on page 32 of "Gordon Russell" by Ken & Kate Baynes. The boot cupboard is also illustrated on page 45 in "Gordon Russell" by Jeremy Myerson in which it states "....its geometric simplicity prefigured future utilitarian and functional approaches to form and finish, not only in Russell furniture but in British design as a whole". Boot cupboard also illustrated in "The English Tradition in Design" by John Gloag.
Just under 44" high, approx 27" wide and 12" deep.
