POSSIBLY BY THOMAS WEEKS, EARLY 19TH CENTURY

These hounds may have been made by the jeweller, Thomas Weeks (d. 1834) who established a 'Royal Mechanical Museum' or emporium in Tichbourne Street in about 1797. The attractions included various animated animals and insects, ingenious clocks, musical instruments, elaborate temples, toys and other such peculiarities that appealed to the London public in the late 18th and early 19th Century (C. Gilbert 'Some Weeks cabinets reconsidered', The Connoisseur, May 1971, p. 15). A signed Weeks inkstand with similar hound figure and beaded white marble plinth was sold anonymously, Sotheby's London, 5 July 1991, lot 25. A pair of recumbent hounds of the same model with gilt-collars was sold in the same Sotheby's sale, lot 22.