The Magazine Antiques

Dresser was one of those larger than life Victorians. Described variously as "Black of beard, bright of eye" and with "a Jove-like manner, a voice of authority and an aura,"2 he is shown in a carte de visite of about 1865, aged around thirty, sporting fashionable light trousers, a frock coat, and a figured waistcoat (Fig. 4).3 But while he appears more man-about-town than designer, his elbow rests on a folio of designs. His failure to obtain the chair of botany at University College, London, in 1860 seems to have put an end to his original career as a professional botanist, and he shifted his focus to the design studio he had established a year or so earlier. In time, Dresser's studio supplied designs for British, European, and American manufacturers of everything from furniture, textiles, wallpaper, cast iron and other metalwork, to ceramics, glass, stained glass, bookbindings, carpets, lace, and linoleum. Dresser acted as a consultant and adviser for governments, museums, manufacturers, and retailers; attended and occasionally served as a juror at international exhibitions in Europe and the United States; and he was the first Western designer of note to visit Japan. His ideas were disseminated through lectures, articles, and books. His personal life was no less eventful: at twenty he married Thirza Perry (1830-1906), and ten weeks later she bore the first of thirteen children, eight of whom survived childhood. From time to time his frenetic pace was tempered by bouts of ill health.

Not long after familiarizing themselves with Dresser's life and work, at a Pier Show in New York the Laroses came across a pair of tall cylindrical goblets made by Watcombe, which they recognized as related to their London purchase and—unlike the seller—realized were designed by Dresser. By 1998, when they acquired a glass and electroplate decanter (Fig 8, third from left), from the New York dealers Historical Design, they were hooked.

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