Recent Acquisitions

Two paintings have recently been acquired by the museum from the sale of the Sir David and Lady Scott Collection at Sotheby’s. 

Painting by Charles West Cope RA, c.1860

The first, showing a woman and baby at a piano, is of about 1860, and is probably by Charles West Cope, a prominent artist who painted several sympathetic studies of mothers with their children. The painting uses a classical triangular composition that recalls religious paintings of the Madonna and child, reinforcing the importance of the relationship as the mother instructs and encourages her small child to play the piano. The portrayal of domesticity and motherhood is a key element of Victorian genre painting and the central image of the piano and its themes of nurture and instruction clearly communicate the middle-class values of its time.

This positive reinforcement of middle class taste by a prize winning artist is in contrast to the circumstances of the second painting - a small oil on canvas by A. Erwood, an artist of whom very little is known, not even their gender. They were recorded as exhibiting at the Royal Academy between 1860 and 1869 and this painting, which is called The First Place, was shown in 1860. It is one of several works by the artist that explores loneliness and separation and shows the sadness of a maid in her first position away from home.

The First Place, painting by A. Erwood (fl.1860-1869)

The artist lived in South London and it is possible that the painting captures a middle-class interior of that area. The painting is most notable for the wealth of information it provides about furnishings and decorating details and the way in which different items, colours and patterns could be combined. The furnishings are accurately drawn - the fanciful-looking curtain pole ends, for example, can be found in a trade catalogue of the period. It is very unusual to see so much furnishing detail in a painting of an ordinary Victorian middle-class interior, making this modest painting, with the insight it gives into mainstream middle-class taste, quite exceptional.

The painting offers us a contrasting narrative on the theme of servants at this period to an existing piece in the museum's collection, Maids of All Work by J Finnie, 1864-5 (online in Search the Collections).

Purchased with the assistance of the Art Fund and the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund.

Amongst other new additions to the museum’s collections over the past few years, perhaps the most notable is a drop-leaf dining table of the 1730s now on display in Room 3, the 1745 parlour. It is worth a closer look, for this is no ordinary table; it is made to a very high standard in a rich, dark mahogany, is in excellent original condition and remarkably, it bears the label of its maker, Giles Grendey. 

 Grendey table, c.1740

The vast majority of surviving pieces of eighteenth-century furniture are unlabelled and their makers unknown. While tables of this new type became common among the middling sort – they were one of the standard dining tables during the mid-eighteenth century – the table in question is one of only two labelled pieces of this form known to date and the only one in a public collection.

Grendey, whose workshop was in Clerkenwell, was a leading light of the London furniture industry in the eighteenth century. The records reveal large quantities of his stock being damaged in a fire, his dealing in timber and speculating in property and being accused of beating an apprentice ‘in a most barbarous manner’. In 1740 he was described as ‘a great Dealer in the Cabinet Way’, in 1755 as ‘an eminent Timber Merchant’ and, in 1758, his ‘fine’ house, at 2 Lyon Street, Clerkenwell, was insured for £1,000.

This acquisition was supported by the Friends of the Geffrye Museum, the V&A/MLA Purchase Grant Fund and the Art Fund

Walnut side chairs, c1730, by William Old & John Ody, set of six oak joined stools, c1620 and oak, draw-leaf table early C17th.

Items recently acquired for the collections include a number of objects specifically for the new 17th and 18th century displays which opened in November 2006.

• A rare set of six joined oak stools, c1620
• A pair of walnut side chairs, c1730, with the makers' label attached to the underside denoting William Old and John Ody of St Paul's Churchyard.
• A silver and gilt capstan salt, 1580, acquired as part of the Sir Ernest Cassel silver collection by a consortium of museums.

These acquisitions were made with the help of grants from the National Art Collections Fund, V&A/MLA Purchase Grant Fund, the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Friends of the Geffrye Museum.