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Lot Essay
With its distinctive use of engraved foliate scrolls and clasps, the idiosyncratic use of yew-wood, already identified as a leitmotif throughout more than thirty years of the firm's work, allied with ebonised mouldings and illusionistic marquetry, this cylinder bureau can be confidently attributed to Messrs. Mayhew and Ince of Golden Square. The French-inspired form is parallelled by the firm's 'Louis XV' commodes, presumably inspired by the work of Pierre Langlois, such as the 'neat French commode' supplied to the antiquarian James West for Alscot Park in 1766 (see: P. Thornton & W. Rieder, 'Pierre Langlois: Ebéniste, Part 2', Connoisseur, March 1972, p. 109, fig. 7).
This attribution is further reinforced by the presence of two other bureaux of very similar character. Of these, the most elaborate is the bureau said to have been presented by Horace Walpole to his niece on her marriage to James, 2nd Earl Waldegrave in 1759. This is of satinwood with a yew-wood interior, inlaid with the arms of Walpole impaling Waldegrave and is embellished with rococo ormolu mounts (exhibited in Rococo: Art and Design in Hogarth's England, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1984, L. 68). The second example at Burghley House is veneered with yew bordered with mahogany. It does not appear in the firm's surviving bill for 1767-68 but is probably covered by the additional payments recorded in the Daybook 1770-1779, bringing the total to £1,922 6s 11½d (The Dictionary of English Furniture Makers, 1660-1840, 1986, p. 594).
This attribution is further reinforced by the presence of two other bureaux of very similar character. Of these, the most elaborate is the bureau said to have been presented by Horace Walpole to his niece on her marriage to James, 2nd Earl Waldegrave in 1759. This is of satinwood with a yew-wood interior, inlaid with the arms of Walpole impaling Waldegrave and is embellished with rococo ormolu mounts (exhibited in Rococo: Art and Design in Hogarth's England, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1984, L. 68). The second example at Burghley House is veneered with yew bordered with mahogany. It does not appear in the firm's surviving bill for 1767-68 but is probably covered by the additional payments recorded in the Daybook 1770-1779, bringing the total to £1,922 6s 11½d (The Dictionary of English Furniture Makers, 1660-1840, 1986, p. 594).