The Antique Furniture Company

Description

GEORGE WALTON (1867-1933)
WALNUT DRESSING TABLE, CIRCA 1900
This is a rare walnut dressing table by the Glasgow designer George Walton. With it’s elegant simplicity and restraint of design it could also be used a side table or cabinet. It has a canted rectangular top with three quarter gallery above two central panelled doors. Each door has cut out handles backed with copper plates and the whole is raised on slender tapering legs. The ivorine maker's label to the rear dates the piece to 1898-1901 when Walton worked from his Wellington Street premises. The mirror is lacking from the centre, possibly to allow the piece to be used other than as a dressing table.

Width 107.5cm wide (42 1/4in)
Depth 45.5cm at centre (17 7/8in)
Height 103cm (40 1/2in)

Literature Moon, Karen, 'George Walton Designer and Architect', pub. oxford 1983. See plates 39 for example of similar handles. George Walton was born in Glasgow on 3 June 1867, the youngest of twelve children. The painter, Edward Arthur Walton, born in 1860, was his elder brother and the flower painter, Constance Walton, his sister. His father died in 1873 leaving the family in reduced circumstances and Walton had to leave school aged thirteen to become a clerk with the British Linen Bank, but while working there he also studied at Glasgow School of Art.

In 1888 Miss Catherine Cranston commissioned Walton to re-design the interiors of the tea rooms at 114 Argyle Street, Glasgow. Walton gave up banking and opened showrooms entitled George Walton & Co, Ecclesiastical and House Decorators, at 152 Wellington Street. The Walton firm quickly expanded into woodwork, furniture making and stained glass. In 1896 Walton received a further commission from Miss Cranston to decorate the Buchanan Street premises. His collaborator was Charles Rennie Mackintosh for whom Walton made some early pieces of furniture. In 1897 Walton moved to London and, as well as retaining his Glasgow showroom, opened a branch in York.

Ref 0093