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Lot Essay
The design of this kidney-form writing-table corresponds precisely to a drawing in Gillow's Estimate Sketch Books dated September 1792 (reproduced here). The table was supplied for John Dumbell, Esq. and made by cabinet-maker T. Romney. Thomas Sheraton also features this 'kidney' shape in a design for a writing-table with pedestals in his Drawing-Book of 1793, pl.58.
A table of this design with turned stretchers joining the sides and back legs is illustrated in H. Cescinsky, English Furniture from Gothic to Sheraton, New York, 1937, p.368. Another similar is illustrated in C. Claxton Stevens and S. Whittington, Eighteenth Century English Furniture: The Norman Adams Collection, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1983, p.149. A virtually identical desk previously exhibited at Grosvenor House in 1956, was sold anonymously, Sotheby's London, 5 July 1996, lot 103 (£28,750).
A table of this design with turned stretchers joining the sides and back legs is illustrated in H. Cescinsky, English Furniture from Gothic to Sheraton, New York, 1937, p.368. Another similar is illustrated in C. Claxton Stevens and S. Whittington, Eighteenth Century English Furniture: The Norman Adams Collection, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1983, p.149. A virtually identical desk previously exhibited at Grosvenor House in 1956, was sold anonymously, Sotheby's London, 5 July 1996, lot 103 (£28,750).