Sideboard

Designed by Edward William Godwin · England · Designed 1867, made c. 1876

Edward William Godwin was an innovative interior decorator and designer of furniture, textiles, and theater sets. He designed his first ebonized sideboard—this is a variation—for his dining room in 1867. It represented a shift away from the weight of contemporary Gothic Revival aesthetics and toward a spare style that gained Godwin some notable contemporary clients, such as James McNeill Whistler and Oscar Wilde.

Medium

Ebonized mahogany with glass and silvered brass

Dimensions

181.6 × 255.3 × 50.2 cm (71 1/2 × 100 1/2 × 19 3/4 in.) (with leaves e×tended)

Accession

2005.529

Credit line

Robert Allerton, Harry and Maribel G. Blum, Mary and Leigh Block, Mary Waller Langhorne, Mrs. Siegfried G. Schmidt, Tillie C. Cohn, Richard T. Crane, Jr. Memorial, Eugene A. Davidson, Harriott A. Fox, Florence L. Notter, Kay and Frederick Krehbiel endowment funds; European Decorative Arts Purchase Fund;Irving and June Seaman Endowment Fund; through prior acquisition of the Reid Martin Estate