MID-19TH CENTURY

These impressive jardinières-on-stands are in the French 18th century tradition combining stylistic elements from tous les Louis. They were almost certainly made for the British aristocratic taste of the mid-19th Century which was showing a renewed interest in the Ancien Régime. Although unsigned, these jardinires compare to the output of the "maker" and dealer Edward Holmes Baldock (d.1845), who was undoubtedly one of the most successful furniture brokers conducting business in and around Soho during the first half of the Century. His trade consisted of enhancing and on occasion fabricating objects from older fragments of furniture, facilitated by the close proximity of his premises at Hanway Street to a significant number of cabinet makers, carvers, silversmiths and goldsmiths. Baldock's initial trade, in 1805, as a "Chinaman", dealing in china and glass, was later expanded to include all types of furniture, specializing in European pieces particularly, as in the present example, French 18th Century style furniture mounted with Sèvres-style porcelain plaques. Baldock employed a Quaker artist, Thomas Martin Randall, to manufacture new wares in Sèvres-style as well as redecorating existing porcelain; the latter included sprigs of flowers on a plain ground as incorporated in these jardinières. Granted the Royal warrant to King William IV from 1832-37 and subsequently Queen Victoria from 1838-45, other illustrious clients of 'Baldock Sévres' included the 5th Duke of Buccleuch, Lord Lowther, later 2nd Earl of Lonsdale and George Lucy. Boulle furniture was also another specialty and on the tripod base of these jardinières there is an ormolu female mask crowned with foliage which relates to French early 18th Century furniture mounts commonly found on Louis XIV, especially Boulle, furniture (see Collections Georges Hoentschel acquises par M.J. Pierpont Morgan et offertes au Metropolitan Museum de New York, plates IV and V, figs. 4 and 5).