BY JOHN BELCHIER

Details

A GEORGE I WALNUT AND BURR-WALNUT BUREAU-CABINET
By John Belchier
Featherbanded overall, the rectangular moulded top above a cavetto cornice and a double-featherbanded door with bevelled later plate, enclosing a fitted interior of folio-racks and five variously-sized drawers around a pair of doors enclosing three short drawers and three pigeon-holes, above a pair of candle-slides above a flap enclosing a fitted interior of pigeon-holes and drawers, above two short and three long graduated drawers, on later bracket feet, the metalwork replaced, the central lower bureau drawer with printed cabinet-maker's label 'John Belchier Cabbinet & Looking-Glass-Maker, at the Sun on the South-side of St.Pauls near Doctrs.-Commons. grinds & makes-up, all sorts of fine Peer & Chim ney-Glasses, and Glass Sconces, Likenwise all Cabbinet Makers Goods NB. Great Choise of all ready Made, at reasonable Rates.'[sic]
86 in. (218.5 cm.) high; 40¾ in. (103.5 cm.) wide; 23¾ in. (60.5 cm.) deep

Provenance

The late H. Lipman, Esq., sold Sotheby's London, 14 November 1980, lot 30.
Anonymous sale, in these Rooms, 15 April 1999, lot 125 (£34,500).

Literature

C. Gilbert, The Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840, Leeds, 1996, p. 85, figs. 65, 66 and 67.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

Lot Essay

The George II mirrored bureau-cabinet, with fine-figured veneer, bears the cabinet-maker's trade-label of John Belchier (d. 1753) that incorporates a cartouche-enclosed 'Sun', which served as the shop-sign of his St. Paul's Churchyard premises (C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture, 1700-1840, Leeds, 1996, p. 85, figs. 65, 66 and 67).

With its hollowed and moulded cornice and single indent-cornered mirror, the bureau relates to another of his labelled cabinets, and to one bearing the label of Antrobus and the date 1730 (Gilbert, ibid., figs. 63 and 23). The former, which is supported on similarly serpentined bracket feet, bears his early medallioned label and is inscribed 'Made by John Bel-Chier at the Sun in St. Pauls Church Yard.'. It is fitted with a single rather than double candle-slides.

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