拍品專文
This sofa formed part of the furniture made by the cabinet-maker George Bullock for New Longwood House. When Napoleon was first sent to St. Helena he lived in Old Longwood House, however plans were quickly made for a new Longwood House as The Times on 24 October 1815 records:
'It was at length specially determined by express order of the Prince Regent, that B. [Bonaparte] should be furnished in his banishment with every possible gratification and comfort ... an order was last month issued by Earl Bathurst [Secretary for War and Colonies], to one of the most tasteful and ingenious artists of the metropolis - this order comprised every species of furniture, linen, glass ware, clothes, music and musical instruments ... the whole work to be made up in a style of pure and simple elegance, with this only reservation that in no instance should any ornament or initial creep into the decorations, which would be likely to recal [sic] to the mind of B. the former emblematic appendages of Imperial rank. The order was to be completed within six weeks, and by the indefatigable exertions of four hundred men it has been finished in the given period, and in greater part packed up for immediate conveyance to Plymouth ...' The architect of the new house was William Atkinson, with whom Bullock was also working at Abbotsford, Scotland for Sir Walter Scott.
The New Longwood commission included 'two Greek sofas ... enriched with highly finished or-molu ornaments', and this sofa is likely to have been made for the new drawing-room (see plan above) or the breakfast room, whose plan shows one sofa (Lowe Papers, British Library, Add. Mss. 20,222, folio 214 and 212). As New Longwood was only completed early in 1821 (all the materials having been shipped over from England), some of the furniture including this sofa, was used at Old Longwood, where Napoleon died on 5th May of that year, having hardly occupied the new house. Indeed some of Bullock's furniture can be seen in a contemporary engraving after Louis Marchand showing Napoleon on his deathbed at Old Longwood (C. Wainwright, op. cit, pp. 33-37, fig. 7).
The sofa is designed in the Grecian manner with scrolled and fluted back and stele-ended arms enriched with ormolu-palm flowers. The same style had been adopted for a chair pattern 'of Grecian form' named in commemoration of Lord Nelson and issued in Rudolph Ackermann's The Repository of Arts, 1814 (P. Agius, Ackermann's Regency Furniture & Interiors, Marlborough, 1984, pp. 95 and 96). Two years later Ackermann was to praise 'Mr. Bullock's extensive and tasteful repository in Tenterden-street, Hanover-square'. He illustrated one of Bullock's stele-ended grates and regretted he had not more space to 'notice adequately the merits both of the material and tasteful feeling with which the articles of Mr. Bullock's manufactory are composed' (ibid., pp. 104 and 113).
At Tabley House, Cheshire, there are a set of four sofas of the pattern supplied for New Longwood, which are likely to have been commissioned by Sir John Fleming Leicester, 5th Bt. (d. 1827), as part of the furnishing of his new picture gallery which was being carried out by Bullock around 1815 (P. Cannon-Brookes, Tabley House, Guidebook, 1991, pp. 18 & 20 and C. Hussey, 'Tabley House, Cheshire - II', Country Life, 28 July 1923, p. 115, fig. 3). An elaborate oak and parcel-gilt sofa, attributed to George Bullock with the same mounts on the arms, and previously in the collection of the Don Pedro de Souza e Holstein, 1st Duke of Palmella (d. 1850), was sold anonymously as part of a suite, in these Rooms, 25 June 1987, lot 174.
A brown-oak and ebony dressing-table also made for Napoleon's use at New Longwood by Bullock, was sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 6 July 1989, lot 117.
Frederick Rathbone, who purchased the sofa in 1896, was primarily a dealer in Wedgwood porcelain and was a very significant figure in the period 1880-1910 when the great collections such as those of Lord Tweedmouth and Lord Leverhulme were being formed (L. Wood, Catalogue of Commodes, London, 1994, pp. 28, 30 and 32).
'It was at length specially determined by express order of the Prince Regent, that B. [Bonaparte] should be furnished in his banishment with every possible gratification and comfort ... an order was last month issued by Earl Bathurst [Secretary for War and Colonies], to one of the most tasteful and ingenious artists of the metropolis - this order comprised every species of furniture, linen, glass ware, clothes, music and musical instruments ... the whole work to be made up in a style of pure and simple elegance, with this only reservation that in no instance should any ornament or initial creep into the decorations, which would be likely to recal [sic] to the mind of B. the former emblematic appendages of Imperial rank. The order was to be completed within six weeks, and by the indefatigable exertions of four hundred men it has been finished in the given period, and in greater part packed up for immediate conveyance to Plymouth ...' The architect of the new house was William Atkinson, with whom Bullock was also working at Abbotsford, Scotland for Sir Walter Scott.
The New Longwood commission included 'two Greek sofas ... enriched with highly finished or-molu ornaments', and this sofa is likely to have been made for the new drawing-room (see plan above) or the breakfast room, whose plan shows one sofa (Lowe Papers, British Library, Add. Mss. 20,222, folio 214 and 212). As New Longwood was only completed early in 1821 (all the materials having been shipped over from England), some of the furniture including this sofa, was used at Old Longwood, where Napoleon died on 5th May of that year, having hardly occupied the new house. Indeed some of Bullock's furniture can be seen in a contemporary engraving after Louis Marchand showing Napoleon on his deathbed at Old Longwood (C. Wainwright, op. cit, pp. 33-37, fig. 7).
The sofa is designed in the Grecian manner with scrolled and fluted back and stele-ended arms enriched with ormolu-palm flowers. The same style had been adopted for a chair pattern 'of Grecian form' named in commemoration of Lord Nelson and issued in Rudolph Ackermann's The Repository of Arts, 1814 (P. Agius, Ackermann's Regency Furniture & Interiors, Marlborough, 1984, pp. 95 and 96). Two years later Ackermann was to praise 'Mr. Bullock's extensive and tasteful repository in Tenterden-street, Hanover-square'. He illustrated one of Bullock's stele-ended grates and regretted he had not more space to 'notice adequately the merits both of the material and tasteful feeling with which the articles of Mr. Bullock's manufactory are composed' (ibid., pp. 104 and 113).
At Tabley House, Cheshire, there are a set of four sofas of the pattern supplied for New Longwood, which are likely to have been commissioned by Sir John Fleming Leicester, 5th Bt. (d. 1827), as part of the furnishing of his new picture gallery which was being carried out by Bullock around 1815 (P. Cannon-Brookes, Tabley House, Guidebook, 1991, pp. 18 & 20 and C. Hussey, 'Tabley House, Cheshire - II', Country Life, 28 July 1923, p. 115, fig. 3). An elaborate oak and parcel-gilt sofa, attributed to George Bullock with the same mounts on the arms, and previously in the collection of the Don Pedro de Souza e Holstein, 1st Duke of Palmella (d. 1850), was sold anonymously as part of a suite, in these Rooms, 25 June 1987, lot 174.
A brown-oak and ebony dressing-table also made for Napoleon's use at New Longwood by Bullock, was sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 6 July 1989, lot 117.
Frederick Rathbone, who purchased the sofa in 1896, was primarily a dealer in Wedgwood porcelain and was a very significant figure in the period 1880-1910 when the great collections such as those of Lord Tweedmouth and Lord Leverhulme were being formed (L. Wood, Catalogue of Commodes, London, 1994, pp. 28, 30 and 32).