Robert Thompson began making furniture during the Arts and Crafts era (1880s – 1930s) and was inspired by the English styles of the 17th century.
The idea of the mouse carvings came about when Thompson had a commission to repair a church and was carving a huge cornice for a screen. He was chatting to his apprentices and one of them commented that they were “as poor as church mice.”
While they were eating lunch, Thompson decided to carve a mouse onto the screen and that sowed the seed for using it as a trademark for his future wares.
Thompson rejected modern machinery in favour of ancient tools and techniques. Alot of the pieces are made using a medieval tool called a “adze” – where they cut into the wood against the grain at an angle and it creates a scalloped pattern that looks super shiny when it”s waxed.
All his pieces are really usable and will last four or five generations becuase they”re so well made.
We have been buying and selling Mouseman items for the past 12 years. Prices start at around £120 for an ashtray, but an early desk or sideboard could be as much as £33,000. The record price for a Mouseman piece is $70,000 for a cupboard sold at Sotheby”s in New York.
Over the last four years the market”s really risen mainly because Mouseman pieces really hold their money, it”s all so beautifully made and the quality is so high. The oak was seasoned for five to eight years before it was even touched.
While today many collectors are wealthy clients or “kings of industry”, when the furniture was first made it was often sold to local farmers who used it for bartering.
We started out buying 1930s and 1940s examples and we could find wonderful early pieces like dining sets fairly easily in the beginning. Now it is much harder, as there are more collectors around. We also deal in the later pieces from the 1950s and 1960s.
As prices go up, copies could become a bit more of an issue. If the mouse is stuck on rather than carved it”s a fake. If the mouse is on the board rather than the handle, it means it”s 1940s or earlier.
On 1930s pieces the mouse has quite a narrow neck, but the ears were prone to be being knocked off so later designs feature a slightly chubbier mouse with a broader neck and flatter ears.
There are lots of other ways of dating pieces, but you have to really know Mouseman furniture in order to get a feel for it. Some collectors are only interested in pre 1955 pieces that were made under the tutelage of Thompson, but later pieces are highly sought after now.
One of my favourite items featuring the trademark mouse, this early cheeseboard currently on sale for £950 in our showroom.
