A GEORGE III MAHOGANY AND PAINTED TOLE-INSET SECRETAIRE CABINET

CIRCA 1795

Details

A GEORGE III MAHOGANY AND PAINTED TOLE-INSET SECRETAIRE CABINET
CIRCA 1795
The molded cornice above a pair of paneled cabinet doors each inset with tôle panels depicting courting peasant couples above oval panels emblematic of Hope and Justice and opening to shelves, the lower case with a mahogany-lined pull-out felt-inset sliding secretaire drawer over apair of cabinet doors depicting further courting couples and opening to linen slides, on French feet, the back with chalk inscription DUDLEY 137 and LOT 108
65 in. (165 cm.) high, 32 in. (81.5 cm.) wide, 21 in. (53.5 cm.) deep

Provenance

Anonymous Sale; Sotheby's, London, 26 September 1997, lot 108.

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Lot Essay

This cabinet with painted panels could possibly be the work of cabinet-maker George Seddon (d.1801), later Seddon, Sons and Shackleton of Aldersgate Street, who ran a sizeable workshop about which few details are known. The figures symbolic of hope and justice compare to the panels on the elaborate cabinet supplied for King Carlos IV of Spain in 1793, which has since been partitioned (components from the painted base most recently sold from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Saul P. Steinberg, Sotheby's, New York, 26 May 2000, lot 236). The firm also produced an array of utilitarian furniture and was constantly 'devising new forms' according to Sophie von la Roche, who visited the workshop in 1786 (see C. Gilbert, 'Seddon, Sons & Shackleton', Furniture History, 1997, pp. 1-29).

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