CIRCA 1815, POSSIBLY BY ENOCH WOOD AND RETAILED BY GEORGE BULLOCK

This Grecian krater-shaped basin was designed as part of a chamber service by the sculptor and cabinet-maker George Bullock (d. 1818), who was commissioned by the Admiralty to supply furnishings for Longwood House on Saint Helena during Napoleon's residence there as an exile from 10 December 1815 until his death on 5 May 1821. His design for a related ewer and basin remains in the Howe Papers at the British Museum (British Library, Ad. Mss 20. 222. folio 234). However, according to an inscription on a photograph found in the archives at Tew, the decoration of the chamber service, featuring a wreath of laurels within its Etruscan/Pompeian red border, was so redolent of the victor that it was deemed highly inappropriate decoration for a 'chamber service' commissioned by George, Prince of Wales, later King George IV for his defeated enemy. Thus it was not despatched to Napoleon and was instead used to form part of several 'chamber services complete bordered' supplied by Bullock to Matthew Robinson Boulton (1770-1842), son of the industrialist and entrepreneur Matthew Boulton, for Tew Park, Oxfordshire, which the latter acquired in 1815. Tew Park was furnished in the large by Bullock and the chamber services were invoiced in 1817 at a cost of £3 and 3 shillings each.

Further pieces from Napoleon's 'Chamber Service' were acquired from Tew by the Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside. A related ewer and basin, perhaps supplied to Endsleigh for John, 6th Duke of Bedford was sold in Two Ducal Collections, Woburn Abbey, Christie's House Sale, 21 September 2004, lot 374. Subsequently published by Jonathan Horne, English Pottery 2005, pp. 28-29, no. 05/28, the author refers to two amphorae and an ewer, formerly in the collection of the potter Enoch Wood and sold by a direct descendant, Christie's London, 12 July 1982, lots 119 and 120 (not illustrated), as supporting evidence of a probable Enoch Wood attribution.