RFS members are kindly invited by the FHS to ‘In the Richest and Most Costly Style’: Furnishing Goldsmiths’ Hall, 1834-5 by Michael Shrive (Assistant Curator at Waddesdon Manor), Sunday, 28 November 2021, 19.00 (BST), 14.00 (ED).
| Home to the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, the Goldsmiths’ Hall in the heart of the City of London was designed by Philip Hardwick (1792-1870) and opened to great acclaim in 1835. The third building of its kind on the site, Hardwick also designed many of the furnishings and employed Thomas and George Seddon and William and Charles Wilkinson to execute the work. Despite some wartime losses, much of the furniture survives in situ and remains in use to the present day. It is also one of the best documented commissions of its time, supplemented by a comprehensive archive including estimate sketchbooks, scale drawings and a complete series of accounts. This lecture will highlight previously unpublished material relating to the commission. Michael Shrive is Assistant Curator at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire (National Trust / Rothschild Collections) and currently sits on the Furniture History Society’s Events Committee. He recently contributed to the publications Jean-Henri Riesener: Cabinetmaker to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (2020) and Furniture History (2019). In 2016 he graduated with an MA in Decorative Arts and Historic Interiors from the University of Buckingham and his dissertation topic was the furnishing of Goldsmiths’ Hall. Formerly he was Curatorial Intern of Decorative Arts at Royal Collection Trust and also worked on the National Trust’s Furniture Research and Cataloguing Project. This lecture is free to members. Non-members wishing to attend can pay for £5 for tickets here. Attendees will be admitted from a waiting room from 18.45. Please make sure you are muted and your camera turned off. Please note that for security reasons we will lock the meeting at 19.20, so make sure you have joined us by then. We hope to see many of you on Sunday, 28 November. For any queries, please email events@furniturehistorysociety.org. This event is sponsored by The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. |
Regional Furniture Society 
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