IN THE MANNER OF THOMAS CHIPPENDALE

This form of George II bureau, with recessed compartment flanked by nests of drawers, features in the l730s trade advertisement of Thomas Potter (see C. Gilbert and T. Murdoch, John Channon and brass-inlaid furniture, Yale, l993, p. 19) and as a 'Buroe Table' in the first edition only of Thomas Chippendale's The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, l754 (pl. XLI). In 1774 Chippendale & Haig supplied a related 'neat mahogany Buroe Table', 40 inches wide and with fitted drawer, for a bedroom apartment at Paxton House, Berwickshire; and a second Paxton dressing-table with partitioned drawer has also been attributed to the firm (see C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. I, p. 274, vol. II, figs. 415 and 417 and C. Claxton Stevens and S. Whittington, l8th Century English Furniture, The Norman Adams Collection, Woodbridge, rev. ed., l985, p. l08). The second Paxton dressing-table was sold by Mrs. Home-Robertson of Paxton, in these Rooms, 25 June 1970, lot 48.

A closely related kneehole desk/dressing-table was offered anonymously, in these Rooms, 6 July 1989, lot 59.