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Lot Essay
This Grecian sofa is inlaid with brass 'Buhl' inlay in the French manner, very like the furniture supplied by the Dublin cabinet-makers and upholsterers, John and Nathaniel Preston to the 2nd Earl of Belmore for Castle Coole, Co. Fermanagh, from 1815. In particular the inlay relates to that on the rosewood tops of the set of four centre tables and large circular table in the Sallon (H. Montgomery-Massingberd and C. Sykes, Great Houses of Ireland, London, 1999, pp. 230-231 and 241.
These sofas are reputed to have come from the Nelson family, in which case they may possibly have been commissioned by the 1st Earl Nelson (d. 1835), brother of the famous Admiral, Lord Nelson, who was given Trafalgar Park, Wiltshire by a grateful nation in memory of the victory at Trafalgar in 1805. In 1829 the Earl married as his second wife, Hilare Barlow.
These sofas are reputed to have come from the Nelson family, in which case they may possibly have been commissioned by the 1st Earl Nelson (d. 1835), brother of the famous Admiral, Lord Nelson, who was given Trafalgar Park, Wiltshire by a grateful nation in memory of the victory at Trafalgar in 1805. In 1829 the Earl married as his second wife, Hilare Barlow.