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Lot Essay
The library writing-table, with flowered frieze and Elizabethan fretted and jewel-embossed trestles, is designed in the George IV antique fashion promoted by Richard Hicks Bridgens (d. 1846). The architect's working relationship with Messrs George Bullock (d. 1818) and William Bullock, proprietors of Piccadilly's 'Egyptian Hall', was established by 1812, and they collaborated in such projects as Sir Henry Godfrey Vassal Webster's historic 'Hastings' Hall at Battle Abbey, Sussex, whose furniture featured in Rudolph Ackermann's Repository of Arts, 1817.
This sofa table pattern was invented in 1823 to correspond with the 17th Century Jacobean mantelpiece in James Watts's great library at Aston Hall, Birmingham, where it featured in situ in A.E. Everitt's 1854 watercolour (pl. 96B). The design was later included amongst Bridgens' Aston furnishings in the Elizabethan, Gothic and Grecian manner published in Designs for Furniture with Candelabra and Interior Decoration, 1838 (V. Glenn, 'George Bullock, Richard Bridgens and James Watt's Regency Furniture Schemes', Furniture History, 1979, pls. 96B, 102B and 103A).
Amongst those later influenced by Bridgens's publication was the Leamington cabinet-makers and upholsterers firm of Messrs Collier and Pluncknett, whose 1870s trade label announced their 'appointment to her Majesty Queen Victoria.' A related 'Aston' table was acquired for Aston Hall, Birmingham in 1976 (Glenn, op. cit., pl. 103B). A related table is illustrated in E. Joy, English Furniture 1800-1851, London, 1977, p. 105.
This sofa table pattern was invented in 1823 to correspond with the 17th Century Jacobean mantelpiece in James Watts's great library at Aston Hall, Birmingham, where it featured in situ in A.E. Everitt's 1854 watercolour (pl. 96B). The design was later included amongst Bridgens' Aston furnishings in the Elizabethan, Gothic and Grecian manner published in Designs for Furniture with Candelabra and Interior Decoration, 1838 (V. Glenn, 'George Bullock, Richard Bridgens and James Watt's Regency Furniture Schemes', Furniture History, 1979, pls. 96B, 102B and 103A).
Amongst those later influenced by Bridgens's publication was the Leamington cabinet-makers and upholsterers firm of Messrs Collier and Pluncknett, whose 1870s trade label announced their 'appointment to her Majesty Queen Victoria.' A related 'Aston' table was acquired for Aston Hall, Birmingham in 1976 (Glenn, op. cit., pl. 103B). A related table is illustrated in E. Joy, English Furniture 1800-1851, London, 1977, p. 105.