On 17th November Christie's are holding an auction in London entitled The English Collector: English Furniture, Clocks and Portrait Miniatures.  Amongst the items for sale is a very attractive  Ince & Mayhew bowfront commode, with harewood, rosewood-crossbanding and inlaid satinwood.

What I especially like about it is that it has four graduated drawers, getting larger in size as they descend.  It is dated around 1770 and the estimate is £12,000 to £18,000.

There are strong similarities between this commode and ones at Broadlands supplied to Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston, for the Book Room.  It has bell flowers in the marquetry and ebonised edge mouldings.  The ring handles are very similar to those on other commodes at Broadlands, and to an Ince & Mayhew commode sold by Christie's in 2007.

I recently came across Pat Kirkham's book on Furniture Making in London in the Eighteenth Century[i].  There are a number of interesting facts about the firm Ince & Mayhew, many of which were included in her article for the Furniture History Society[ii].

However, one detail that had escaped me up to now was that when John Mayhew married Isabella Stephenson, she had a large dowry.  Pat Kirkham writes: John Mayhew’s wife brought a large sum of money to her husband when they married in 1762, and, widowed within the year, Mayhew used approximately three thousand pounds of that money to finance his business.

I am going to re-visit the National Archives to see if there is any further information on this, but it did help to explain why Isabella's sister, Ann, William's wife, had no hesitation about taking John Mayhew to court to get a fair settlement on the break-up of the partnership.  She would no doubt have known all about that money, and would have regarded it as belonging equally to her family.  No wonder she insisted on a more balanced final payment.

[i] Kirkham, P. (1988). The London Furniture Trade 1700-1870. Furniture History, 24, I-219. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23406689
[ii] Kirkham, P.. (1974). The Partnership of William Ince and John Mayhew 1759—1804. Furniture History, 10, 56–60.  Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23403407
 
 

The first three plates in the Universal System of Household Furniture, the directory published by Ince & Mayhew between 1759 and 1762, contain Ornaments for Practice and include instructions for novice designers on how to draw. 

The first plate includes the following description:
Plate I – containing several pieces of Foliage properly adapted to young beginners in their first practice of Drawing, being extremely necessary to bring the Hand into that Freedom required in all kind of Ornament, useful to Carvers, Cabinet-Makers, Chasers, Engravers, etc, etc. ….

The next plate is called A Sistimatical Order of Raffle Leaf from the Line of Beauty and is described as  a compleat Leaf of Foliage; the principal Sweep or Centre Line is that Foundation and Basis of the whole Order of Ornament; that must be first drawn and made perfect (which can only be done by freedom of Hand) before you proceed any further;

It was interesting to learn from an article in the RIHA Journal[i], that William Hogarth was promoting the theory of the line of beauty in his book Analysis of Beauty which was published in 1753.  He saw the line of beauty as an S-shape, or an inverted S-shape, which he considered conveyed liveliness and activity, which would excite the viewer.  This was in contrast to straight lines, which were seen as inanimate. 

It is interesting to see William Ince used the phrase Line of Beauty and it would seem likely that Hogarth’s book was important to him when learning his trade.  His apprenticeship with John West started in 1753, so the book would have just been available.

Incidentally a raffle leaf was an architectural ornament.  The Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture’s definition is: Serrated, indented, or crumpled leaf-like enrichment with waving indented frond-like (or raffled) edges. Raffling is applied to the notched edges of carved foliage in architectural ornament.

I have also discovered that the Universal System of Household Furniture was not known to have been advertised in America until 1766.  An advertisement appeared in the South-Carolina & American General Gazette (Charleston) on July 18, 1766.  It read: “Robert Wells, At the Great Stationary and Book Shop on the Bay, has imported for sale Chippendale’s and Ince and Mayhew’s designs of household furniture from London.”  The advertisement appeared again in 1772.[ii] 


[i] Anne Puetz, Drawing from Fancy: The Intersection of Art and Design in Mid-Eighteenth-Century London RIHA Journal
[ii] Morrison H. Heckscher,  English Furniture Pattern Books in Eighteenth-Century America http://www.chipstone.org/article.php/48/American-Furniture-1994/English-Furniture-Pattern-Books-in-Eighteenth-Century-America (Dixon, p.68, no.19).

Further to last week’s post, I had a look in the British Newspaper Archives for Ince & Mayhew and then searched again for Mayhew and Ince.

The results supported my findings.  The firm was called Ince & Mayhew, apart from the eighteenth century articles and advertisements which came out when the firm was still in existence, which referred to Mayhew and Ince.  Any furniture for sale at auction stated Ince & Mayhew.

Interestingly in the 1870s and 1880s there were a series of advertisements in many local papers looking for copies of furniture directories.  They all read the same:

OLD BOOKS WANTED on Cabinet Making by Hepplewhite, Ince and Mayhew, or Chippendale.  Will give £2 2s for either…..

The amount offered was sometimes £2 10s.The address given for replies was 41 Porchester Road, London, later Evering Road, Stoke Newington.

In 1878 the advertisement appeared in the following papers:  Bristol Mercury, Liverpool Mercury, Worcester Journal, Sheffield Independent, York Herald, Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, Leeds Times, Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, Hampshire Advertiser, Belfast Telegraph. In 1879 it was in the Liverpool Mercury, in 1880 the Glasgow Herald and in 1881 the Gloucester Citizen, Bury Free Press, Leeds Times, Banbury Advertising and the Lancaster Gazette.

On 12th May 1894 the Birmingham Daily Post ran a report on an Important Sale of Books at Sothebys at which The Universal System of Household Furniture consisting of 300 designs and 95 plates by Ince and Mayhew had been sold for £25[i],  proving a very good investment for the collector.
 
As reported last week, the 1762 edition of the Universal System was specially scarce and a copy in perfect condition was priced by Batsfords in 1940 at £150[ii].  In 1996,Christie’s sold a copy of an intermediate issue, dated about 1765, for £6,325 and in 2011 they sold a copy for £8,125.  A first edition, dated 1760, was sold by Bonhams in 2013  for 6500 USD (£4,973 ) and a copy was sold by them from the library of the late Hugh Selbourne, M.D. in 2015 for £6,875 including premium. 
 
What has astonished me though is a copy of the Universal System being sold by Potterton Books of York, London and New York for £18,000.  This version is printed on twentieth century mottled calf, has gilt decorative borders and red morocco lettering pieces.  It is described as a Handsome book. 
 
William Ince invented and drew 75 of the 95 plates as well as the title page and I’ve been looking at some of them in my Dover Publications edition.  Items such as the library steps and the Ladies’ Dressing Table are really delightful!


[i] According to the National Archives Currency Converter, £25 in 1890 would be worth close on £1500 in 2005.  £2 2s would be roughly £100.
[ii] Davis, Frank, The World of Art in Wartime, Furniture “Convenient to the Nobility and Gentry The Illustrated London News on 25th May 1940. 

Unsurprisingly the descendants of William Ince are convinced that the firm should be referred to as Ince & Mayhew.  After all, William was the talented cabinet-maker who produced the majority of the drawings for their directory The Universal System of Household Furniture.  He was the man to whom Matthew Boulton offered a well-aired Bed, wholesome Bread & Cheese and a hearty wellcome[i].  He would have overseen the production of the furniture, probably choosing the workmen, training the apprentices and checking on their output.  He was the man who wrote to Lord Myddleton at Chirk Castle to check the paintings on the ceiling to make sure the compartments over the Glass’s in the piers might be correspondant with them[ii].  It is not going too far to say that William Ince was responsible for the furniture produced by the firm.

Why then is it often referred to as Mayhew and Ince? 

Eighteenth century records almost always refer to the firm as Mayhew and Ince. In their 1759 Agreement John Mayhew’s name comes before William Ince’s on the legal document. Mayhew and Ince is how it is written in the Land Tax returns for the houses they owned and rented; it is referred to as Mayhew & Ince in some directories and advertisements. Charles Ince, William’s son, refers to the Firm of Mayhew, Ince and Sons in his advertisement in the London Gazette of 12th April 1800 where he says he is taking over the firm.  Also many of the accounts sent to their clients were headed Mayhew & Ince.  However, occasionally they advertised as Ince & Mayhew, such as in an advertisement for a Lease which appeared in The Times on 23rd May 1799 and sometimes in the Bank books for their clients the name of William Ince appears, or Ince & Mayhew, Ince & Co, Messrs Ince.

It is also interesting to note how the name has been presented in the antiques world.  Initially, their directory was the main focus of articles and as William Ince’s name appears before that of John Mayhew, the firm is referred to as Ince & Mayhew.  In 1904 R. S. Clouston wrote an article called Minor English Furniture Makers of the Eighteenth Century Article III-Ince and Mayhew[iii]. An item in The Times dated 8th June 1921 refers to some chairs for which there is reason to think that they are the work of Ince and Mayhew as they resemble an illustration of a chair in the Universal System.  

An article written by Lieut-Colonel E. F. Strange, Late Keeper in the Victoria and Albert Museum, for The Illustrated London News in 1929 entitled English Hanging Mirrors also referred to the publication of Ince and Mayhew-The Universal System… and had a reproduction of Plate LXXVIII from their Directory. This showed two designs for Oval Glass-Frames and is a delightful illustration by William Ince, with a hunter and dog, birds, squirrels and possibly a little lamb included in the carving.

Another article appeared in The Illustrated London News on 25th May 1940.  This was entitled The World of Art in Wartime, Furniture “Convenient to the Nobility and Gentry.” by Frank Davis.  He included four illustrations from The Universal System, each time referring to the firm as Ince & Mayhew.  The particular volume from which they were taken, the 1762 edition, was specially scarce and in perfect condition so was priced by Batsfords at £150; Chippendale’s Director being priced at £25.   In 1946 the furniture shop Heal’s ran a series of advertisements using quotations from The Universal System, citing the firm as Ince & Mayhew. 

In The Times in 1963 Edward Pinto, in an article about the Furniture Makers’ Guild, wrote Such great names in the eighteenth century as Thomas Chippendale, William Vile, Ince and Mayhew were proud to call themselves Upholders first and Cabinet-Makers second.  Pinto used the same name for the firm when writing about the Kimbolton Cabinet in another article for The Times in 1969.

Lindsay Boynton’s article in 1966 was called An Ince and Mayhew Correspondence[iv].  Colin Streeter consistently refers to Ince and Mayhew in his 1971 article Marquetry Furniture by a Brilliant London Master[v] as does Morrisson Heckscher in 1974[vi]. In 1981 Hugh Roberts wrote articles about Broadlands, called The Ince and Mayhew Connection[vii].  However in the 1990s the name changes to Mayhew and Ince as seen in articles by Hugh Roberts and Charles Cator, in Lucy Wood’s Catalogue of Commodes, and almost always in Lot Notes produced by the auction houses.  Does anyone know why?

It is very pleasing to note that in his more recent articles Hugh Roberts has started using Ince and Mayhew again[viii]. 


[i] Boynton, L. (1966). An Ince and Mayhew Correspondence Furniture History, 2, 23–36
[ii] Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru = The National Library of Wales E5126-E5128
[iii] The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, 6(19), 47–52
[iv] Boynton, L. (1966). An Ince and Mayhew Correspondence Furniture History, 2, 23–36
[v] Colin Streeter, June 1971 Marquetry Furniture by a Brilliant London Master The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 29 (10), 418–429
[vi] Heckscher, M. (1974). Ince and Mayhew: Bibliographical Notes from New York  Furniture History, 10, 61–67.
[vii] Hugh Roberts, ‘The Ince and Mayhew Connection, Furniture at Broadlands, Hampshire’, Country Life, 29 January 1981 pp288-90.
[viii] Hugh Roberts, 'Precise and Exact in the Minutest Things of Taste and Decoration' : The Earl of Kerry's Patronage of Ince & Mayhew (2013)  Furniture History 2013


 

I have been looking through some old catalogues online and came across the wonderfully named Colonel Mulliner’s Extraordinary Tray, which was for sale from Apter-Fredericks in New York in 2011.  It is a beautiful piece made from satinwood and tulipwood with a number of marquetry motifs including husks tied with ribbons.   The design matches a number of other pieces attributed to Ince & Mayhew including a pair of card tables and a Pembroke table from Ham House. 
   
Being curious about the name, I decided to find out more about Colonel Mulliner. In his later years he established an outstanding collection of English furniture, objects of art and tapestry, which was sold by Christie’s after his death in 1924, when his estate was worth around £250,000 (nearly £10 million today)[i]. The tray was in his collection, as well as a commode by Ince & Mayhew which is now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York as part of the Untermyer Collection.   

However, as Mr H H Mulliner, Managing Director of the Coventry Ordnance Works, the Colonel played a part in the build up to World War One.  He took over the family’s coach-building business in 1887 and by 1897 they were making body parts for motor vehicles, including Rolls Royce and Bentley.    He was also interested in developing tools to make ordnance and became Managing Director of Coventry Ordnance Works owned by Cammell Laird in 1903.   In 1906 he wrote to the War Office to inform them that there was an “enormous expenditure going on at Krupp’s for the purpose of manufacturing very large naval guns and mountings quickly.”[ii] Krupp produced most of the artillery of the Imperial German Army.

Unfortunately that was not the case, and it can only be assumed he was trying to get business for his own company, which was struggling to find orders and by 1909 was lying idle. Mulliner wrote letters to The Times, visited politicians and succeeded in persuading Balfour that more Dreadnoughts had to be built.  The popular press supported the scare-mongering, (sound familiar?)  and eight vessels were eventually ordered.  Germany, who had no intention of producing the numbers of dreadnoughts mentioned, lost all trust in British diplomacy.  Philip Noel-Baker in his 1959 Nobel Prize lecture said: year by year, the race in Dreadnoughts led to panics and to counter-panics in Germany and Britain; by 1909 our foreign minister, Lord Grey said it had become the most important single factor in increasing European tension and the risk of war.[iii]

Mulliner was required to leave the Board of Directors of Cammell Laird, receiving a settlement of £100,000 in addition to the payment of £142,566 for shares on the merger of the businesses in 1903. 

He was in the Territorial Army and in 1914 he was an Honorary Colonel for the Remount Service, whose role was to provide horses for the cavalry.  He relinquished this appointment in October 1915.  According to the London Gazette he relinquished the appointment of Hon. Col. of the Royal Field Artillery, 4th S. Mid. Brigade on 18th November 1922, on completion of tenure, retaining his rank.

He developed his interest in antiques after the war and was an important early collector.  He left some items to the Victoria & Albert Museum, and also bought and modernised Rainham Hall, now belonging to the National Trust. 

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulliners_(Birmingham)

[i] Probate Record
[ii] Noel-Baker, Philip John, The Private Manufacture of Armaments. London, Gollancz 1936 p412-6
[iii] http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1959/noel-baker-lecture.html

Two yew-wood tables by Ince & Mayhew have recently been advertised by Apter Fredericks in London.  Although slightly varying in design they both have a very distinctive frieze, which can also be seen on other items of Ince & Mayhew furniture.

The style is called a Vitruvian scroll and is like a running wave.  It was named after Vitruvius a Roman architect, engineer and author.  It was almost uncanny to see how closely the frieze on the dressing-table provided for the Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim Palace matched the ones on the two tables. It is also the same design as the frieze on a card table at Blenheim. The tables are saved to my Pinterest board – Furniture for Sale.

This Vitruvian scroll frieze also appears on a pair of Bookcases sold by Christie’s in 1993 for £111,500, which also have swags hanging from ribbon ties and large urns, both characteristic of Ince & Mayhew marquetry.   
  
It is this very close similarity that allows an expert to attribute an item of furniture to a particular maker with confidence.  The most satisfactory proof to my mind is a bill that specifies the item that was supplied, on a piece of paper with the firm’s heading!  Croome Court, and Linley Hall provide good examples in their archives.

Another very helpful indicator is an inventory that specifies an item supplied by the firm such as the 1792 inventory at Broadlands where Lady Palmerston noted the Secretary made by Ince (17)82.

Sometimes a person’s bank account will indicate that an amount was paid to Mr Ince, or Ince and Mayhew, or any of the other variations.  The 3rd Earl of Darnley’s account book gives the account name as William Ince from 1761-1780.[i]  He paid the firm a total of £3,798 18s 4d, and his son the 4th Earl paid them £3605 9s 3d.  This excludes the £962 18s for the 3rd Earl’s funeral. (Medway Archives: U0565) It is then a question of looking at items of furniture  that still exist  related to the account-holder's residence, in this case Cobham Hall, to see which have Ince & Mayhew characteristics.


[i] Ingle, Sarah William Ince Cabinet Maker His Life and Ancestry 2015 p.60

Ince & Mayhew were closely involved with the architect William Chambers in the replenishment of Blenheim Palace for the 4th Duke of Marlborough in the 1760s and 1770s up to 1789. Ince & Mayhew’s directory The Universal System, published in book form in 1762, was dedicated to the Duke.

Hugh Roberts has written about their work for Blenheim Palace in his article for the Furniture History Society ‘NICELY FITTED UP': FURNITURE FOR THE 4TH DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH.[i]  Apart from providing a great deal of furniture including the State Bed, some beautiful Commodes, chairs for the Hall, the Dining room and the Saloon, and a pair of mahogany steps for the Duke’s Observatory in 1785, the firm was also involved in decorating and refurbishment.  They provided items such as silk damask curtains and leather table covers, and they cleaned the tapestries.  They also provided bell glass lamps and a Triangle Mahogney Musick stand.

I was interested to read that they provided a number of mahogany doors for the palace in 1776-7 and again in 1787.  These doors all had a three-panelled design, some plain, some with fluted panels. The locks on some of the doors were stamped E. Gascoigne, and some of the hinges were stamped INVENTER. In 1787 these were provided by Mrs Gascoigne. The Stewards Day Book noted that on May 18 1787 Came from Mr Mayhews 3 pr. Mehogny doors ..4 Pair of Mehogny doors… from Mrs Gascoigns 2 Strong locks for Iron Doors; 7 mortice locks, 42 hinges, and furniture for 7 Pr. of door.

Writing in the Catalogue of Commodes[ii], Lucy Wood relates that the Gascoigne family worked from 37 Bury Street, Westminster, the address from a 1789 bill to Lord Monson from R. Gascoigne.  James Gascoigne paid the rates for this address for 1777-78 and 1784 to 1787.  Edward Gascoigne paid for 1780 to 1782 and Rachael Gascoigne paid from 1786 to 1795.  Edward was presumably the inventor of the high precision self-closing hinges. 
 
According to the Freemasonry Membership Records[iii], Edward was described as a lockmaker when he became a freemason in 1772.  He was buried in St James Piccadilly in 1785 and it may have been that he had met William Ince or John Mayhew through church, as both the Ince and Mayhew families had their children christened there. Alternatively they may have met through the freemasons.  Both William Ince and Edward Gascoigne were members of Lodges that met in New Bond Street in the 1770s, William of the Lodge of Felicity and Edward The Corner Stone Lodge.  Or the firms may have been employed independently.

 It is worth noting that the lockmaking business was continued by Racheal Gascoigne, who may have been the sister, daughter or widow of James or Edward, just as William Ince’s mother, Mary, continued the glass-making business when her husband, John, died in 1745: two examples of women business proprietors in eighteenth century London.


[i] Roberts, H. (1994). 'NICELY FITTED UP': FURNITURE FOR THE 4TH DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. Furniture History, 30, 117-149. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23407923

[ii] Wood, Lucy, Catalogue of Commodes 1994 London:HMSO p.184

[iii] Library and Museum of Freemasonry; London, England; Freemasonry Membership Registers; Description: Register of Members, London, vol I, Fols 1-597

A beautiful sycamore and marquetry serpentine commode has come up for sale which has only recently been attributed to Ince & Mayhew. 

Lucy Wood, the author of Catalogue of Commodes, has carried out a detailed study and has identified a number of Ince & Mayhew  characteristics.  For example the commode has an unusual frieze of sunflowers which is identical to a frieze on a pair of tables formerly at Mersham-le-Hatch in Kent and the marquetry of the medallions on the doors uses a three-dimensional ornament of a string of beads looped over and under the urn, which can be found on a dressing table from the Bute collection.  Overall there are nine other items of furniture linked to this commode by various marquetry motifs. 
 
Most of these pieces have been ascribed to Chippendale, as he was originally thought to be the maker of the Mersham-le-Hatch tables.  However, Lucy Wood has checked and there are no accounts for Mersham for 1773-78 for Chippendale.  She also reminds us that the furniture he supplied to Mersham was much more sober than the tables. (C. Gilbert, The Life and Works of Thomas Chippendale (1978) Vol 1, p222)  Looking at the other linked items, she confidently attributes them all to Ince & Mayhew and suggests that stylistic comparisons support this claim.
 
Lucy Wood reports another unusual aspect in that expensive veneer has been put on faces that would not have been seen, eg on three sides of the stiles and the fourth side of the legs, as well as on the back face of the end panels which were only converted to doors later.
 
The top of the commode has wonderful marquetry which was presumably requested by the client and may give some clues as to his or her interests and profession.  There is a caduceus, which is a winged staff with two snakes entwined.  This was an ancient symbol of commerce and negotiation and is associated with Hermes.  It was also used as a symbol of printing, from the attributes of Hermes as Mercury the messenger.  There is a triangle with rings, an instrument which had recently been accepted into the eighteenth century orchestra and another implement.  If you would like to hazard a guess as to what it is, please do so, using a comment. These three items are interlinked with a chain of husks.  Either side of the top of the triangle lie a dragonfly and a scallop shell.  The latter is a symbol of a pilgrim to the Holy Land or one who has walked the Camino de Santiago.  The dragonfly may just represent an interest in nature.
 
Who was this person with so many different interests, and sufficiently wealthy to have this commode made for them?   Presumably a pilgrim who was engaged in commerce or printing and interested in music and nature, but their identity is likely to remain unknown.   
 
It is very pleasing to see Ince & Mayhew described by the antique dealer as one of the finest cabinet-makers of the mid-late eighteenth century and for items previously attributed to Chippendale to be attributed to them.