July’s Item of the Month is a small mahogany cabinet on integral stand by Jeremy Green, signed and dated 1979, with pear wood panels and chequer line inlays.
Provenance: Private Collection, Cotswolds, UK.
Jeremy Green, born 1951 the year of The Festival of Britain, grew up in Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds. Despite his surroundings and the strong traditions of cabinet making in the area, it wasn’t until he studied at the University of Liverpool that he fell in love with the Arts & Crafts movement through his reading in the university library. He went on to gain an honours degree in Archaeology, Ancient History and Egyptology. On his return to the Cotswolds, he joined Oliver Morel (1916-2003) in his Moreton-in-Marsh workshop as a trainee. He then set up a workshop at his parents house Crofts Brook in Chipping Campden. He worked to private commissions, also selling at a gallery in Chipping Campden and local exhibitions. He became a well known figure in the town, and was the owner and editor of the Campden Bulletin for over 30 years.
An accompanying card label, penned in the cabinet maker’s hand, notes ‘Cabinet made from re-used West Indian mahogany from the nineteenth century. The panels are of pear wood from an old orchard in nearby Wickhamford and the inlay is of white sycamore and American walnut. The handles are of Brazilian Rosewood. £3000.’
Cotswold Life carried a feature article about Chipping Campden craftspeople in 2010, featuring Jeremy Green…’Beautiful pieces in museums and country houses, the work of William Morris, and small-workshop furniture makers of the nineteenth century in the south Cotswolds, all inspired cabinet maker Jeremy Green, who trained with Oliver Morel at Moreton-in-Marsh. He believes that furniture, looked after and treasured, lasts longer than anything else we make, often outliving a succession of houses into which it is put. There are some fine pieces of his in the gallery. One is an inlaid seat trunk mainly of local English walnut, but which also features boxwood from Chipping Campden, Fenland bog oak, cedar of Lebanon and French oak in the drawers, a back of walnut, and an underside in English oak. Jeremy likes to maintain close contact with the raw materials of his craft and the natural environment that produced it. He works with trees that are either standing dead or have been blown down, which he then cuts into planks and seasons – perhaps for upwards of twenty-five years – before it is used. Jeremy is currently working on a commission for a dining room set of a nine-and-a-half-foot-long table and ten chairs made out of walnut from two trees that blew down in Worcestershire twenty years ago.’
The appeal of this cabinet to me is its early period, produced when Jeremy was 28 years old and in his first 5 years of independent cabinet making. Also its purity of form and design, taking inspiration from Morel, Gimson and the Barnsleys. I am particularly drawn to its story and the re-use of older and local timbers, which contrast and complement. The function of this cabinet appears to be bespoke and not obvious, but I view and appreciate the cabinet as a piece of sculpture.