Lot Essay
The pattern for this library folio-cabinet with ratchetted, double-folding and leather-lined top fitted for book-rests, corresponds to the type of Pedestal portfolio stand sketched in the Estimate Book of Messrs. Gillow of Oxford Street and Lancaster for 1836 (Gillow MSS., no. 5106, Westminster Library). One such cabinet, stamped by Gillow, formed part of the furnishings commissioned by Peter Langford-Brooke (d.1840) for the Library at Mere Hall, Cheshire and was described as a 'Mahogany folio stand and cabinet with rising top' in the 1840 inventory (sold by Mrs. Helen Langford-Brooke, Mere Hall, Cheshire, Christie's house sale, 23 May 1994, lot 196).
Although this folio-cabinet of exotic Goncalo Alves wood is not listed in the Gillow Estimate Books, it was almost certainly supplied by Gillows to George, 2nd Marquess of Hastings (d.1844), who succeeded in 1836, either for Donington Hall, Leicestershire or Loudoun Castle, Ayrshire. Together with its side cabinet en suite (lot 41) it was almost certainly acquired by John, 4th Marquess of Bute from Edith Maud, Countess of Loudoun in 1922, together with the Hastings Papers and Ramsay's portrait of John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun (lot 120).
Although this folio-cabinet of exotic Goncalo Alves wood is not listed in the Gillow Estimate Books, it was almost certainly supplied by Gillows to George, 2nd Marquess of Hastings (d.1844), who succeeded in 1836, either for Donington Hall, Leicestershire or Loudoun Castle, Ayrshire. Together with its side cabinet en suite (lot 41) it was almost certainly acquired by John, 4th Marquess of Bute from Edith Maud, Countess of Loudoun in 1922, together with the Hastings Papers and Ramsay's portrait of John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun (lot 120).