A GEORGE IV MAHOGANY AND EBONISED CYLINDER BUREAU

Details

A GEORGE IV MAHOGANY AND EBONISED CYLINDER BUREAU
The rectangular top above a cylinder crossbanded in rosewood and enclosing a fitted interior with a sliding dark-red leather-lined writing-surface with hinged ratcheted slope, four rosewood mahogany-lined small drawers and a pair of glazed doors enclosing a red silk-velvet lined interior with a shelf, above a pair of mahagony-lined frieze drawers, on turned tapering legs with reeded collars, on turned feet, probably originally with a superstructure, restorations, the feet possibly originally with castors
44 in. (113 cm.) high; 49 in. (124.5 cm.) wide; 28 in. (72.5 cm.) deep

Lot Essay

The French bureau or scretaire cylindre was invented around 1750, and a related pattern for a slide-fitted writing-table covered with a rigid 'tambour' featured in The Cabinet-Maker's London Book of Prices, 1788 (pl.14). This finely-figured mahogany bureau has Etruscan-black enrichments and columnar legs, whose Egyptian ornament of reed-clustered capitals were adopted in the mid-1790s for sideboard-tables supplied for Kenwood House, London.

Similar hollowed and reed-clustered capitals feature on a 'Carlton House' writing-table in the Royal Collection (see H. Roberts, 'The First Carlton House Table', Furniture History, 1995, p. 126, fig. 3).

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