A GEORGE III BRASS-MOUNTED MAHOGANY DESK

CIRCA 1770

Details

A GEORGE III BRASS-MOUNTED MAHOGANY DESK
Circa 1770
In the French style, the rectangular top with a pierced gallery to each side, the case with a frieze drawer flanked by two drawers to each side of a kneehole, with sham drawers to the reverse, on slight cabriole legs, the sides with shaped skirt
32½in. (82.5cm.) high, 50½in. (128cm.) wide, 32¾in. (83cm.) deep

Provenance

Possibly supplied for Henry Howard, 12th Earl of Suffolk and 5th Earl of Berkshire (d.1779) for Levens Hall, Westmorland.
Thence by descent in the family to Josceline Fitzroy Bagot, 1st Bart. (d.1913) when it appears in an photograph at Levens of 1903 (see literature citation below).

Literature

J. Musson, The English Manor House, London, 1999, p.45 (shown in situ in the South Drawing Room).

Lot Essay

Levens Hall is the largest Elizabethan House in Cumberland and Westmorland. It has been long admired for its topiary gardens, particularly in the nineteenth century, which were designed by Frenchman Guillaume Beaumont for Colonel Grahame in the late seventeenth century. The gardens were the subject of a series of watercolours by George S. Elgood (1851-1943). A view of the South Drawing Room was rendered by architect Joseph Nash in 1849 (sold Christie's London, 24 November 1998, lot 253) although the desk does not appear in this drawing.

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