Design for Three Hat and Umbrella Stands

Anonymous, British, 19th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The firm Gillows was established in Lancaster by Robert Gillow (British, Singleton 1704-1772) in 1730. The firm also opened a shop in London which was turned into a permanent branch in the 1760s. Gillows of Lancaster and London produced furniture for the higher classes of society in Britain and the colonies overseas. The firm had a remarkably long and mostly prosperous history which is documented richly in the Gillow archives in London. The archive also contains many sketches and finished designs for their furniture. A group of approximately 250 presentation drawings dating to the first half of the 19th century were acquired by the Metropolitan Museum in 1938 however. They show the range of designs produced by the firm, from chairs and sofas to dressing tables and hat and umbrella stands, as well as whole room arrangements and draperies. The pieces are executed in various historic period styles, from ‘contemporary’ Empire and Biedermeier to Neo Gothic, Baroque and Rococo, which could be ordered according to taste and preference.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art