Daniel Cottier

Daniel Cottier (1837–1891) was an artist and designer born in Anderston, Glasgow, Scotland. His work was said to be influenced by the writing of John Ruskin, the paintings of the Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the work of William Morris. He painted allegorical figures in the Pre-Raphaelite style of Rossetti and Sir Edward Burne-Jones. Cottier is considered to be an important influence on Louis Comfort Tiffany and also is credited with introducing the Aesthetic movement to America and Australia.

Cottier was interested in glass, furniture, ceramic manufacture, and interior design. His art furnishing business opened branches in Edinburgh, Glasgow and London between 1864 and 1869, and then in 1873 he opened more branches in New York, Sydney and Melbourne. In the United States he is seen as a 'harbinger of aestheticism….and a profound influence on American decoration'. And the same can be said of Scotland where he also exported the Aesthetic Movement to Scotland via his many professional and business contacts which he had made during his training and early career in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. So, by the time he moved to London in 1869, Cottier was already part of an influential and avart-garde group of designers—many of them also expatriate Scots—who were to establish the Aesthetic Movement in England.

He was born in January 1837. His training began as an apprentice to glazing and decorating firm in Glasgow in the 1850s, first with the firm of David Keir (1802–65), then with John Cairney & Co (1828–65). Cairney's circle included the architect and designer Alexander 'Greek' Thomson (1817–75), who was of international stature and one of the most original interpreters of the Greek Revival style. When Thomson was designing a building, he included coloured decoration, furniture and carpets in his drawings. His ornamentation and colour schemes also drew from Egyptian, Assyrian, and Persian cultures. Cottier in all probability came into contact, whilst an apprentice at Cairney's, with this unified eclecticism of Aesthetic Movement interiors of the 1870s.

Cottier subsequently worked for the stainer James Ballantine in Edinburgh, and attended evening classes at the Trustees' Academy, at which 'Ornamental Design' was taught. Around 1859 he went to London, where he may have worked for the stained glass makers, Ward & Hughes, while attending evening classes at the Working Men's College at 31 Red Lion Square in the East End. Here he heard lectures given by the critic John Ruskin (1819–1900) and received drawing lessons from the artist Ford Madox Brown (1821–93). Cottier could not have been closer to the Pre-Raphaelites or to the stirrings of the Aesthetic Movement: in 1861 William Morris (1834–96) opened his decorating and furnishing partnership across from the College, at 8 Red Lion Square. This may have exposed Cottier to the colour theories being developed by Morris, whose subtle and resonant tertiary hues were beginning to replace the archaeologically inspired mid-century primaries favoured by designers such as Thomson.

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