Lot Essay
This form of antique sarcophagus reed-gadrooned cistern evolved from the 'krater'-vase cistern illustrated in Thomas Hope's Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807, pl. XIII. A pattern for the present cistern, with rounded corners and lacking an Ionic echinus (egg-and-dart) rim, features in the 1820 Estimate Sketch Book (no. 3064) of Gillow & Co. of London and Lancaster. Their Oxford Street branch supplied a pair of related sideboard cisterns to Thomas John Wynn, 2nd Baron Newborough in 1823. The Gillow pattern is illustrated with a related cistern, sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 9 March 2000, lot 28.