IN THE MANNER OF EDWARD HOLMES BALDOCK, MID-19TH CENTURY

The occasional writing-table is designed in the French 18th century tradition combining stylistic elements from 'tous les Louis', a fashion promoted in London in the 1830s by Robert Blake and by the Hanway Street dealer and 'Chinaman' Edward Holmes Baldock. Such furniture fulfilled British aristocratic taste of the mid-19th Century which saw a renewed interest in the Ancien Régime. After 1850 firms such as the Anglo-French Mellier & Co. Druce & Co., and Wright & Mansfield, who specialised in high quality 'French-styled' furniture, were among London's most fashionable cabinet-makers and decorators refurbishing and embellishing interiors in Grosvenor Square, London and Manderston, Berwickshire, properties of Sir James Miller, and also fitting up the dining-room at Farmleigh, a Guinness home near Dublin (Mellier), and Guisachan, near Inverness and the Louis XVI-style suite of rooms at Brook House, London (Wright & Mansfield). Closely related tables were sold anonymously Christie's, London, 13 November 2014, lots 226 and 227 (£5,250 and £6,875 respectively, including premium).