Lot Essay
The mahogany clothes-press, with Grecian moulded cornice, French sunk-tablet pilasters and tapered stump or 'toupie' feet displays beautiful feather-figured veneer in triumphal-arched tablets divided by a brass reeded moulding. It is worth nothing that related arched tablets had featured on a clothes-press that was supplied in the late 1760s by Thomas Chippendale Senior (d. 1779) for Harewood House, Yorkshire (see C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. II, fig. 249). In view of the superb quality and design of the present clothes-press, it seems possible that it could have been executed by Thomas Chippendale Junior (d. 1822), whose ability as a designer was praised by George Smith, who served as 'Upholder' to George IV, when Prince of Wales. Around 1800 Chippendale Junior was employed by Edward Lascelles, Baron Harewood of Harewood, created 1st Earl of Harewood in 1812 (d. 1820), and in 1796, a bill from Chippendale Junior to Lord Harewood records a related clothes-press as 'A Very Large Mahogany Press of exceeding fine Wood, the middle part fitted up as a Cloathes press the Shelves lined and Baize aprons, and the front edges made of Cedar'.
The cornice and arched tablets featured in an upright piano-forte case introduced in around 1800 at his Duchess Street house by the connoisseur Thomas Hope (d.1842); and later illustrated together with chairs with tapered columnar legs in his Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, London 1807 (pls XXIII and LIX).
The cornice and arched tablets featured in an upright piano-forte case introduced in around 1800 at his Duchess Street house by the connoisseur Thomas Hope (d.1842); and later illustrated together with chairs with tapered columnar legs in his Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, London 1807 (pls XXIII and LIX).