IN THE MANNER OF GEORGE OAKLEY

The sideboard-pedestal, with Etruscan-black inlay, has a bolt-enriched cornice derived from Thomas Hope's mantelpiece pattern, inspired by a sepulchral chamber, which he introduced around 1800 in his Egyptian Room at Duchess Street, London and illustrated in his Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, London, 1807. Its palm-flowered lozenge compartment derives from an 1805 Grecian wardrobe pattern illustrated in George Smith's Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, London, 1808, pl.133. The bolted freize features on a Grecian ebony-inlaid bookcase supplied in 1810 to John Madryll Cheere for Papworth Hall, Cambridgeshire by George Oakley (d.1841) of Old Bond Street and St. Paul's Churchyard (sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 18 November 1993, lot 117), so it is perhaps possible that this pedestal came from Papworth.