Sideboard (Edward William Godwin)

This sideboard was designed by Edward William Godwin (1833–86), who was one of the most important exponents of Victorian Japonisme, the appreciation and appropriation of Japanese artistic styles. Japan began trading with the West in the 1850s, and by the next decade imported Japanese prints (Ukiyo-e), ceramics and textiles were very fashionable in Britain. Godwin was influenced by interiors depicted in Japanese prints and by the studies he made of Japanese architecture, but he did not seek to imitate Japanese designs. Instead his Anglo-Japanese furniture aimed to combine the more general principles of simplicity and elegance he admired in the art of Japan with domestic needs of the Victorian home.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideboard (Edward William Godwin)