ATTRIBUTED TO GILLOWS

Details

A GEORGE IV MAHOGANY OPEN BOOKCASE
Attributed to Gillows
Crossbanded overall in rosewood, the rectangular top with three-quarter pierced gallery, above three graduating shelves, the lower rectangular section flanked by ring-turned tapering reeded baluster columns, with turned tapering feet, probably originally with solid gallery and castors
50½ in. (128 cm.) high; 37 in. (94 cm.) wide; 16 in. (40.5 cm) deep

Special notice

VAT rate of 17.5% is payable on hammer price and buyer's premium when purchased by non-EU purchasers.

Lot Essay

This bookcase has recessed reeded columns in the Pompeian manner and is framed by 'ribboned' rosewood. In 1801, Gillows of London and Lancaster supplied a closely related pair of bookcases to Luke Dillon, 2nd Lord Clonbrock to furnish his new library at his ancestral home, Clonbrock in Co. Galway. They were sold by Mr. and Mrs. Luke Dillon-Mahon, Clonbrock, Christie's house sale, 1 November 1976, lot 12 (illustrated). Another very similar pair of bookcases, probably supplied to Robert Ferguson, M.P. (d. 1840) for Raith House, Fife, was anonymously, in these Rooms, 6 July 2000, lot 84 (£75,250).

The fashionable 'moving bookcase' of this type featured in Thomas Sheraton's Appendix to the Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book, 1802 (pl. 23).

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