Lot Essay
The table, with its bulb-turned legs, relates to the Elizabethan-style introduced by the architect Richard Bridgens (d.1846), and features in his 1819 design for a 'dark oak' table for the ancient banqueting hall at Aston Hall, Birmingham (V. Glenn, 'George Bullock, Richard Bridgens and James Watt's Regency Furnishing Schemes', Furniture History, 1979, vol. XV, pl.101A), while its embossed-jewel patterae appear on Elizabethan patterns later popularised by his Furniture with Candelabra and Interior Decoration, 1825. Bridgens, served as a pupil of the Liverpool sculptor William Bullock before working in association with his brother the cabinet-maker George Bullock (d.1818). This accounts for the pattern for the table's ribbon-wreath inlay of hop-flowers, designed in the French-antique fashion and featuring in George Bullock's workshop drawings and on brass-inlaid cabinets executed in 1818 for Blair Castle, Scotland (C. Wainwright et al., George Bullock, Cabinet-Maker, London, 1988, no.9, p.67-69). A related dark oak sideboard-table, enriched with holly ribbons and jewelled patterae, was supplied by Bullock for Tew Park and invoiced in January 1818 (sold by order of the Executors of the Late Major Eustace Robb, Tew Park, Great Tew, Oxfordshire, Christie's house sale, 27 May 1987, lot 57 and again by a Nobleman, in these Rooms, 17 November 1988, lot 111.