Lot Essay
George Oakley of St. Paul's Churchyard and Old Bond Street, supplied a closely related satinwood dressing-table, banded in rosewood, for Papworth Hall, Cambridgeshire, in 1810. It was supplied with a movable dressing-mirror to place on the flat top (P. Macquoid and R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, London, rev. ed., 1954, p. 232, fig. 26). The Papworth table has many features exactly the same as the present lot.
Thomas Sheraton in his The Cabinet Dictionary, London, 1803, described the dressing-chest as 'a small case of drawers...the uppermost of which is divided into conveniencies for dressing...there is sometimes a knee hole in the front...if they sit to dress, there must either be a dressing drawer to drawer out, or a knee hole in the front when the dressing part is in a well under the top' (p. 202). George Oakley, 'the most tasteful of the London cabinet-makers', was a subscriber to Sheraton's Dictionary (ibid. p. 11).
This dressing-table comes from the same collection as the pair of Empire chairs designed by Dominique Vivant Denon and made by Georges and Franois Jacob that was supplied circa 1819 to Thomas Hope (d. 1831) for the Egyptian Room at The Deepdene, Surrey. The chairs were sold in these Rooms, 16 November 1995, lot 344 (243,500).
Thomas Sheraton in his The Cabinet Dictionary, London, 1803, described the dressing-chest as 'a small case of drawers...the uppermost of which is divided into conveniencies for dressing...there is sometimes a knee hole in the front...if they sit to dress, there must either be a dressing drawer to drawer out, or a knee hole in the front when the dressing part is in a well under the top' (p. 202). George Oakley, 'the most tasteful of the London cabinet-makers', was a subscriber to Sheraton's Dictionary (ibid. p. 11).
This dressing-table comes from the same collection as the pair of Empire chairs designed by Dominique Vivant Denon and made by Georges and Franois Jacob that was supplied circa 1819 to Thomas Hope (d. 1831) for the Egyptian Room at The Deepdene, Surrey. The chairs were sold in these Rooms, 16 November 1995, lot 344 (243,500).