Saunders, W. Gualbert (1837-1923)
Saunders, W. Gualbert
London; decorative furniture maker and artist (b.1837-d.1923)
Saunders is better known as a designer of stained glass and the founder of Saunders & Co. stained glass manufacturers. However, he also worked on some furniture as a decorative painter.
He arrived in Burges’ offices in Buckingham Street in 1865 and, with brief interruptions because of ill health, worked with Burges, or with Burges’s satellites, Holiday, Chapple and Lonsdale, for fifteen years. He is known to have produced several painted cabinets and escritoires in the 1860 and 1870s, one of which, inscribed ‘Treasure That Which is Good’, was offered at Sotheby’s London first on 2/3 May 1985 & then 21 October 1988. Another cabinet with panels illustrating allegorical figures in medieval society was sold at Sotheby’s Belgravia, 6 December 1978, lot 166. This is now at Manchester Art Gallery (accession no. 1979.132).
Source: Mordaunt Crook, William Burges and the High Victorian Dream (1981).
Occupation
Ornamentation/Design
Style