.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
These serpentine cabinets, designed in the French 'antique' style, may well be the work of George Oakley (d. 1841). They relate to a cabinet-on-stand and an antiquarian secretaire which all appear to have been executed in the same workshop and sold in Christie's Longleat collection sale in 2002, lots 326 and 328. The stylized star-inlay with features on the cabinet-on-stand is characteristic of Oakley and can be seen, for instance, on the suite of furniture supplied in 1810 to Charles Madryll Cheere for Papworth Hall, Cambridgeshire (see P. Macquoid and R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, London, rev. edn., 1954, vol. III, p. 202, fig. 42). The 2nd Marquess did patronize Oakley who supplied the exceptional suite of Grecian or 'antiquarian' oak seat-furniture invoiced in 1812 (two open armchairs from the suite were sold as lot 361 in the Longleat sale).
Granted a Royal warrant in 1799 after receiving a visit from Queen Charlotte and other members of the Royal family, upon which '...her MAJESTY, the Duke and Duchess of YORK, and the PRINCESSES, &c., highly approved of the splendid variety which has justly attracted the notice of the fashionable world' (Morning Chronicle, May 1799), Oakley enjoyed a long and successful career. Stretching from 1789-1819, he specialized in producing furniture in the Grecian taste for the Prince Regent and his circle.
Granted a Royal warrant in 1799 after receiving a visit from Queen Charlotte and other members of the Royal family, upon which '...her MAJESTY, the Duke and Duchess of YORK, and the PRINCESSES, &c., highly approved of the splendid variety which has justly attracted the notice of the fashionable world' (Morning Chronicle, May 1799), Oakley enjoyed a long and successful career. Stretching from 1789-1819, he specialized in producing furniture in the Grecian taste for the Prince Regent and his circle.