Lot Essay
This cylinder desk, with its brass mouldings and 'Egyptian' striated columns, is designed in the Louis XVI style of the 1780s, while its reeded feet reflect the Grecian style of the early 19th Century. At the time French furniture was appearing in London following the revolutionary dispersals. A related 'secrétaire à cylindre' bearing the brand of the ébéniste Bernard Molitor (maître in 1787) was sold in these Rooms, 16 May 1800, lot 101. Its unusual scrolled terminations above the brass-enriched columns may have inspired the same features on this desk (U. Leben, Molitor, London, 1992, no. 70).
Its five-drawer writing-table, with cylinder top and drawer-fitted cabinet, relates to Thomas Shearer's pattern illustrated in The Cabinet-Maker's London Book of Prices, 1788, plate 13, while the design of the ink-trays attached to the slide and fitted with a central book-rest are in turn shared with Thomas Sheraton's design for a 'Cylinder Desk and Bookcase' in his Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book, 1802, pl. 17.
Mahogany furniture, embellished with golden satinwood and brass, was a feature of fashionable furniture produced around 1800 by George Oakley (d. 1840) of St. Paul's Churchyard, a subscriber to Thomas Sheraton's Cabinet Dictionary of 1803 and Master of the Upholders Company in 1822. It is possible that he was related to the Moravian cabinet-maker John Oakley, who trained with David Roentgen (d. 1807) between 1766 and 1772, before establishing London workshops in the 1770s; this connection may explain the Germanic design and use of brass enrichments (cf. the bonheur-du-jour sold in these Rooms, 5 July 1990, lot 146).
Its five-drawer writing-table, with cylinder top and drawer-fitted cabinet, relates to Thomas Shearer's pattern illustrated in The Cabinet-Maker's London Book of Prices, 1788, plate 13, while the design of the ink-trays attached to the slide and fitted with a central book-rest are in turn shared with Thomas Sheraton's design for a 'Cylinder Desk and Bookcase' in his Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book, 1802, pl. 17.
Mahogany furniture, embellished with golden satinwood and brass, was a feature of fashionable furniture produced around 1800 by George Oakley (d. 1840) of St. Paul's Churchyard, a subscriber to Thomas Sheraton's Cabinet Dictionary of 1803 and Master of the Upholders Company in 1822. It is possible that he was related to the Moravian cabinet-maker John Oakley, who trained with David Roentgen (d. 1807) between 1766 and 1772, before establishing London workshops in the 1770s; this connection may explain the Germanic design and use of brass enrichments (cf. the bonheur-du-jour sold in these Rooms, 5 July 1990, lot 146).