Lot Essay
The top half of the bookcase may have been a panelled cabinet with solid doors and at a later date altered by inserting glass panels and glazing bars. However, the inside of the top is mahogany-lined which might support the view that it has always been glazed, and the fretted glazing bars follow a pattern that features in Gillows' 1792 Estimate Sketch Books (illustrated in L. Boynton, Gillow Furniture Designs 1760-1800, Royston, 1995, fig. 143).
The lower part corresponds to a chest that is thought to have been supplied by Gillows to Peter Brooke (d. 1783) or his wife Elizabeth (d. 1809) for Mere Hall, Knutsford, Cheshire, sold on behalf of the Executors of the late Mrs. Helen Langford-Brooke, Christie's house sale, 23 May 1994, lot 148.
The present lot may well have formed part of the Gillow furniture inherited by John Lloyd Wynne from his father, John Wynne (d. 1788).
The lower part corresponds to a chest that is thought to have been supplied by Gillows to Peter Brooke (d. 1783) or his wife Elizabeth (d. 1809) for Mere Hall, Knutsford, Cheshire, sold on behalf of the Executors of the late Mrs. Helen Langford-Brooke, Christie's house sale, 23 May 1994, lot 148.
The present lot may well have formed part of the Gillow furniture inherited by John Lloyd Wynne from his father, John Wynne (d. 1788).