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Book of designs for furniture, rooms, and ornamental details (Sundry Drawings of Cabinet Ware &c.)

 
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Title
Book of designs for furniture, rooms, and ornamental details (Sundry Drawings of Cabinet Ware &c.)
Creator
William Gomm & Son & Co.
Description
This volume contains drawings of looking glasses, a girandole, a table frame, an elbow chair, a clothes press, bookcases, a bed, a sideboard table, a library table, a commode, and a cabinet stand. Four related drawings illustrate a scheme for the furnishing of a drawing room. Another depicts an ante-room. Various rococo scrolls and cartouches are also represented in the volume. To some degree, the drawings depend on the published work of Chippendale, Lock & Copland, and Thomas Johnson. They demonstrate knowledge of Chinese and Gothic tastes popular in the period. Some were signed by a William Gomm, which one is uncertain, and dated July, August, and November, 1761. The collection also contains two more volumes: a book devoted to exercises in the five orders of architecture: bases, cornices, entabulatures, elevations, and specifications; and a book comprising exercises in geography, vulgar fractions, decimals, and algebra. It is likely that the three volumes were created by the younger William Gomm, aged 15 in 1761. William Gomm & Son & Co. was a cabinetmaking and upholstering firm. The founder, William Gomm, was born ca. 1698 to Richard Gomm and was apprenticed to Hugh Maskell in 1713. By 1725, he had established his own business in Peterborough Ct. In 1728, Gomm married Dinah Cookman who died shortly after the family moved to Newcastle House in 1736. Gomm married Marianne de Moivre in 1737. Gomm had three sons from his first marriage; the eldest, Richard, joined his business before 1756. In 1763, the business became known as William Gomm & Son & Co. By 1765, Francis Peter Mallet had become a partner and the firm was sometimes known as Gomm, Son & Mallet. Richard's son, William, may have worked in the firm for a period of time, as in 1770 he was made free of the Upholders' Co. under the terms of the 1750 Upholders' Act. He subsequently became a priest of the Church of England. In 1776, the firm went bankrupt. At the time of the bankruptcy, William had very little involvement in the firms activities; he died in 1780. Richard left the furniture making business and the enterprise was carried on by Mallet. Furniture-Drawings; Furniture design; Furniture, Rococo; Interior decoration-History-18th century; Architectural drawing-Detailing; Decoration and ornament-Chippendale style
Format
Subjects
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