A REGENCY BROWN OAK, OAK AND HOLLY CIRCULAR CENTRE TABLE

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TEW PARK There has been a house at Tew since at least the early 17th century, when the E-shaped manor house (illustrated overleaf) was owned by the Tanfield family. The house was later owned by the Falkland, Keck and Stratton families, before being purchased in much altered form by Matthew Robinson Boulton, son of the celebrated Matthew, one of the giants of the Industrial Revolution and partner of James Watt (see lot 8). His purchase of Tew in 1815 was soon followed by the appointment of the Tenterdon Street cabinet-maker and upholsterer, George Bullock (1778-1818) who had previously opened 'Grecian Rooms' in both Liverpool and London's Piccadilly, and had executed the prestigious commission to furnish the St. Helena residence granted by George, Prince Regent to the defeated Emperor Napoleon. Bullock likewise completely re-furnished the three principal rooms and bedrooms of the old house with furniture in the fashionable Grecian style, jingoistically made of holly and British oak (a hallmark of Bullock's style), and upholstery done in bold Regency colours that received considerable praise from Rudolph Ackermann in his fashion publication The Repository of Arts. Bullock died in 1818, but not after having billed his client for £4,400, a figure that led to some acrimonious exchanges between client and cabinet-maker. The late 1820s led to grander schemes for a huge Gothic mansion to designs by Thomas Fulljames, but these were discarded in favour of a new Gothic library (illustrated opposite) with furniture supplied by the leading Bond Street maker, George Morant, who had previously worked at Tew in Bullock's time and therefore made furniture in harmony with Bullock's. M. R. Boulton died in 1842 so it seems likely that his son, Matthew Piers Watt Boulton (d. 1894), was the recipient of the Morant furniture. That commission included new bookcases for the old dining-room introduced to give bookspace to Matthew Boulton (I)'s library of scientific books from Soho House. THE PROPERTY OF A FAMILY (LOTS 160-188)

A REGENCY BROWN OAK, OAK AND HOLLY CIRCULAR CENTRE TABLE

BY GEORGE BULLOCK, 1817

Details

A REGENCY BROWN OAK, OAK AND HOLLY CIRCULAR CENTRE TABLE
By George Bullock, 1817
The mirror-veneered top inlaid with a border of alternating ivy, honeysuckle and flowerheads, above a more stylised inlaid frieze, on a turned spreading column with foliate-inlaid collar, on a concave-sided platform inlaid with honeysuckle, and downswept legs, foliate brass caps and castors
28½ in. (72.5 cm.) high; 43 in. (109 cm.) diameter

Provenance

Supplied to M. R. Boulton (d. 1842) and by descent to
Major Eustace Robb, Tew Park, Great Tew, Oxfordshire, sold Christie's house sale, 27-29 May 1987, lot 33.

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

This was made for the Drawing Room and invoiced in 1817 as '1 Circular Oak Loo Table richly inlaid with Holly & white mouldings £28'.

George Bullock's 'sketch' for this centre table for Matthew Robinson Boulton's Drawing Room is likely to have been the pattern sent in January 1816 following his December visit to Tew 'with the view to the preparations of the furniture'. Named a 'Loo table' after a card-game, its circular 'altar' form on Grecian-scrolled 'claw' evolved from the monopodium table illustrated in Thomas Hope's Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807 (pl. XXXIX). In place of Hope's ebony-inlaid and palm-flowered mahogany table, Bullock has used native oak, probably acquired from Drumlanrig, Scotland and inlaid it with a wreath of white holly in native honeysuckle pattern in keeping with the room curtains of 'Pink embossed twilled Calico ... trimmed with Buff Velvet'. Its tapered stump feet and ribboned inlay correspond to that of Bullock's pattern for 'An English Bed' issued in Ackermann's 1816 Repository of Arts (C. Wainwright et al., George Bullock, Cabinet-Maker, London, 1988, p.123). Its 'claw' is enriched with libation-patterae, en suite with the curtain-rod finials (see lot 162). The inlay patterns survive in the 'Bullock' tracings preserved in the Birmingham City Art Gallery.

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