How Voysey Saw The Writing on The Wall

Charles Voysey (1857-1941) was among the first designers of the Victorian age to appreciate the significance of industry. 

An architect by trade, it was ultimately the creation of countless designs suitable to the mass production of soft furnishings that really paid the bills. 

Voysey sold his first wallpaper design in 1883 and a decade later his reputation was well-established. In 1896 The Studio magazine wrote: “Now a 'Voysey wall-paper' sounds almost as familiar as a 'Morris chintz' or a ‘Liberty silk’."

The 69 x 56cm watercolour and pencil design titled Heraldic to be offered in our Twentieth Century Decorative Art and Design sale on October 10 is signed and dated September 20, 1904. This characteristic pattern combining flattened silhouettes of birds and crowns with power-bile sashes of Tudor roses, was one of several hundred wallpaper designs Voysey made for Essex and Co. from the early 1890s until well into the 20th century. It was apparently given by Voysey to his friend Edmund Hunter (1866-1937), founder of the St Edmudsbury Silk Weaving Works in Bedford Park and in Letchworth. The estimate is £3000-5000.

Contact: johnblack@sworder.co.uk