Object Description
A large Victorian leather stool, of long rectangular form, the deep buttoned top reupholstered in blue-black leather, the frieze pierced with a band of flower-buds, all raised on turned legs with the original castors, a maker’s label underneath inscribed ‘Trapnell & Gane, 38-40in College Green, Bristol’. English, circa 1870.
Footnote: Trapnell and Gane were Bristol cabinet makers founded in 1824 by Henry Trapnell. Continuous expansion saw the company move premises several times before establishing their headquarters in College Green in 1860. They exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and at the London International Exhibition of 1862, and had branches in Cardiff and Newport by the 1880s. The Furniture Gazette, 15 June 1878, reported that ‘the firm had for nearly sixty years enjoyed one of the best reputations in west England for cabinet manufacturing and that its system of importing timber direct from overseas and cutting and seasoning of the wood was unique