Work table

This rimu worktable was made by Henry Mason in the late 1840s or early 1850s, and is based on a pattern in George Smith’s Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide (1826). It is the oldest identified piece of New Zealand-made furniture attributable to a specific furniture pattern (Cottrell 2016, 54).

This table closely matches George Smith’s pattern for a ladies work table, although Mason has added a veneer to the top and a turned stretcher between the trestle supports. This latter feature was sketched into his copy of the pattern book in pencil, perhaps as a guide for a potential customer. The neo-Classical decorative elements illustrated in the Guide have been interpreted by Smith and replicated in the table’s trestle supports.

George Smith was strongly influenced by Thomas Hope, whose furniture patterns borrowed structural and ornamental elements from Roman and Greek antiquity. Smith’s 1808 publication A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior Decoration popularised the style and placed it before a wider audience. By 1826 the widening stylistic base of the Regency era necessitated an update, and Smith’s 1826 Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide included 153 new plates in Grecian, Egyptian, Roman, Etruscan, Gothic and Louis Quartorze styles. He is considered one of the key creative figures of the Regency era, and his patterns were popular in New Zealand until at least the 1860s (de Lautour 2003, 53). According to Northcote Bade ‘if any one style could be called "colonial" in New Zealand, it would be modified Regency, which remained for so long in popularity’ and for which Smith offered abundant inspiration. This worktable is a fantastic example of that colonial style.

References

• Cottrell, William. 2016. ‘Patterns and impressions: an investigation into the copying of British furniture designs, the cabinetmaker’s pattern book and trade catalogue in New Zealand 1820-1920’. PhD thesis, University of Canterbury.
• de Latour, Patricia. 2003. A New Zealand Guide to Antique and Modern Furniture. Wellington: Grantham House Publishing.
• Miller, Judith ed. 1998. Miller’s Antiques Encyclopedia. London: Miller’s.
• Northcote-Bade, Stanley. 1971. Colonial Furniture in New Zealand. Wellington: A.H. and A.W. Reed.