.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Martin Carlin, maître in 1766.
BLAKE MOUNTS
Very little is known about the firm of Blake, who appear to have consisted of Robert, located at 8 Stephen Street, Tottenham Court Road, London, and listed in the 1820 Post Office Directory as "Buhl manufacturer and cabinet inlayer", and later his sons, George, Charles, James and Henry, who continued the same work. Very few works are signed by the family and include an octagonal marquetry table signed Robert Blake, in the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Alnwick table, an inlaid piano signed by George Henry Blake, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, a small floral-inlaid bureau plat in a private English collection, a pair of commodes in the Frick Collection, New York, a pair and a single commode offered by Sotheby's, London, 2 November 1990, lot 231, and 16 May 1997, lot 130, respectively, as well as a pair offered at Christie's, New York, 14 October 1990, lot 452, where the caryatid angle-mounts were signed Blake London.
THE DESIGN
Almost certainly retailed by a marchand-mercier such as Dominique Daguerre, the pattern for this table was originally conceived to support either a Sèvres porcelain or a Japanese lacquer top. Of the three documented examples, the earliest is probably that stamped by Carlin at Waddesdon, whose plaque was almost certainly that acquired by Simon-Philippe Poirier and his partner, Daguerre in 1775 (G. de Bellaigue, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor Furniture Clocks and Gilt Bronzes, London, 1974, no. 84, pp. 408 - 413). A further example, reputedly given by Marie-Antoinette to Lady Auckland in 1786 and with Sèvres plaque dated 1778, is in the Jones Collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum (O. Brackett, Catalogue of the Jones Collection - Furniture, London, 1922, fig. 43), while the final version, in ebony and Japanese lacquer, is discussed in F.J.B. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection, vol. I, Furniture, New York, 1966, no. 144, pp. 287 - 189).
BLAKE MOUNTS
Very little is known about the firm of Blake, who appear to have consisted of Robert, located at 8 Stephen Street, Tottenham Court Road, London, and listed in the 1820 Post Office Directory as "Buhl manufacturer and cabinet inlayer", and later his sons, George, Charles, James and Henry, who continued the same work. Very few works are signed by the family and include an octagonal marquetry table signed Robert Blake, in the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Alnwick table, an inlaid piano signed by George Henry Blake, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, a small floral-inlaid bureau plat in a private English collection, a pair of commodes in the Frick Collection, New York, a pair and a single commode offered by Sotheby's, London, 2 November 1990, lot 231, and 16 May 1997, lot 130, respectively, as well as a pair offered at Christie's, New York, 14 October 1990, lot 452, where the caryatid angle-mounts were signed Blake London.
THE DESIGN
Almost certainly retailed by a marchand-mercier such as Dominique Daguerre, the pattern for this table was originally conceived to support either a Sèvres porcelain or a Japanese lacquer top. Of the three documented examples, the earliest is probably that stamped by Carlin at Waddesdon, whose plaque was almost certainly that acquired by Simon-Philippe Poirier and his partner, Daguerre in 1775 (G. de Bellaigue, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor Furniture Clocks and Gilt Bronzes, London, 1974, no. 84, pp. 408 - 413). A further example, reputedly given by Marie-Antoinette to Lady Auckland in 1786 and with Sèvres plaque dated 1778, is in the Jones Collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum (O. Brackett, Catalogue of the Jones Collection - Furniture, London, 1922, fig. 43), while the final version, in ebony and Japanese lacquer, is discussed in F.J.B. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection, vol. I, Furniture, New York, 1966, no. 144, pp. 287 - 189).