BY JAMES OLDHAM

Details

A GEORGE III CAST-IRON STOVE
By James Oldham
Of square pyramidal form, with pearled panels and thyrsus finial, the square central section with oval panels, one enclosing a door, above a pierced apron with an ash-drawer, on square baluster legs headed by foliage, with the royal arms, cast 'OLDHAM LONDON PATENT AIR STOVE'
72 in. (183 cm.) high; 15½ in. (39.5 cm.) wide; 15¾ in. (40 cm.) deep

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

The stove, enriched with tablets and medallions of Venus pearl-strings, is conceived as a vase-capped 'altar', in the 'antique' manner introduced in the 1770s by the architect Robert Adam (d. 1792). Its flower-fretted stove-chest is framed by Doric pilasters and surmounted by an Egyptian obelisk pedestal that is crowned by a bacchic vase with a Grecian-stepped pedestal. This perforated 'cassolette' vase is shaped as a palm-wrapped thyrsus-cone. Palms also wrap the stand's vase-baluster feet, while 'Apollo' sunflowered medallions embellish its flute-fretted frieze. This stove pattern, with its 'Eternity' obelisk, features on the late 1770s trade-sheet issued by the Smithfield stove-maker Henry Jackson; while a related obelisk stove was designed in 1776 for Home House, London (A. Kelly, English Fireplaces, London, 1968, p. 70, fig. 79).

The present stove, dating from around 1780, bears a tablet with the Royal Arms of George III and the 'patent air stove' register of James Oldham. He traded at the 'Patent Stove Warehouse', Holborn and is listed in 1787 as supplying stoves for Carlton House, London for George, Prince of Wales, later George IV (Public Record Office, Ref. Ho. 73/32).

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