Description & Technical information

A George III mahogany fire scree with Soho needlework atributed to Wright & Elwick.  The firm of Wright & Elwick had premises in both London and Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, from which they supplied furniture, needlework and tapestries. A trade card with the reverse side used as an invoice and dated 1758, preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, states that Richard Wright had been director of ‘The Greatest Tapestry Manufactory in England for Upwards of Twenty Years’.
Payments to Wright & Elwick totalling £131 6s between 1762 and 1771 are recorded in ledgers preserved at the Leeds Archive Service, West Yorkshire. It is likely that the screen was supplied during that period.
The screen remained with the family at Cusworth Hall, South Yorkshire, until the furnishings were sold in 1952. It has survived in remarkable untouched condition and retains the original needlework panel.

Date:  1765
Period:  1750-1850, 18th century
Origin:  England
Medium: Mahogany, Needlework
Dimensions: 115.5 x 109.5 cm (45¹/₂ x 43¹/₈ inches)
Provenance: John Battie, Cusworth Hall, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England.
By descent at Cusworth Hall until 1952.
Walter Waddingham Ltd., Harrogate, England.
John Martin Beazor, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England.
Simon Redburn Antiques, London, England.
Hotspur Ltd., London, England.
The Hon. David McAlpine, London, England.
Literature: Geoffrey Beard and Christopher Gilbert, The Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840, 1986, pp. 1006-7.
Illustrated: 
CINOA ‘International Art Treasures Exhibition’, exhibition catalogue, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1962, no. 250, pl. 156.
Karin M. Walton, The Golden Age of English Furniture Upholstery 1660-1840, Leeds 1973, fig. 20.
Anthony Coleridge, The Cusworth Suite, 2008, p. 35, fig. 17.


Exhibitions: CINOA International Art Treasures Exhibition, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1962, lent by John Martin Beazor.
The Golden Age of English Furniture Upholstery 1660-1840, Temple Newsam, Leeds, 1973.
Categories: Furniture