Christopher Dresser

Christopher Dresser

(1834-1904)
Born in Scotland, Christopher Dresser was an independent designer and botanist who became a major figure of the Aesthetic Movement and Anglo-Japanese style. Although most of his ceramics and silver pieces were produced in relatively large numbers, his furniture, especially that made for his three major commissions, Allangate Mansion, Bushloe House and the Art Furnishers’ Alliance, is extremely rare. Mostly made in ebonized and gilded wood, these pieces were designed and manufactured between 1870 and 1883, when the AFA was liquidated. A few isolated pieces are now in the collections of important American, European and Asian museums. Dresser was also the only artist of the aesthetic movement to visit Japan personally in 1876.