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Lot Essay
In the '1839' Inventory, a 'Chinese pattern secretary, ditto cabinet' are recorded in the 'Chinese Room' and there are numerous washstands recorded in various bedrooms; however, there is no clear reference to a Chinese wash-stand.
This Chinese patterned dressing-room wash-stand table, with ewer-stand stretcher and bason-fitments (now missing) concealed under a hinged top, was almost certainly commissioned for Endsleigh, Devon by John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford (d.1839). Patterns for such hinged top bason stands were published in Thomas Sheraton's The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book, 1794. However its form, with china-gallery step-raised in the corners and centre, reflects the furniture fashion popularised by publications such as G.W. Mason's, Costume of China, 1800 and by contemporary watercolours of Chinese interiors. The legs' stylised cloud-scrolls appear on Chinese costumes as well as on 'famille-rose' ceramics dating from the reign of Emperor Qianlong (d.1795); and the motif was much favoured by the court decorator Frederick Crace (d.1859) in schemes executed around 1815 for the palatial Marine Pavilion, Brighton of George, Prince Regent, later George 1V (M. Aldrich, The Craces: Royal Decorators, 1990, fig 3:1). It relates closely to oak-coloured washstands designed for the Prince Regent's Chinese bamboo-decorated and chintz-hung bedroom apartments (J. Rutherford, The Life of the Royal Pavilion, 2003, fig 9 ).
This Chinese patterned dressing-room wash-stand table, with ewer-stand stretcher and bason-fitments (now missing) concealed under a hinged top, was almost certainly commissioned for Endsleigh, Devon by John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford (d.1839). Patterns for such hinged top bason stands were published in Thomas Sheraton's The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book, 1794. However its form, with china-gallery step-raised in the corners and centre, reflects the furniture fashion popularised by publications such as G.W. Mason's, Costume of China, 1800 and by contemporary watercolours of Chinese interiors. The legs' stylised cloud-scrolls appear on Chinese costumes as well as on 'famille-rose' ceramics dating from the reign of Emperor Qianlong (d.1795); and the motif was much favoured by the court decorator Frederick Crace (d.1859) in schemes executed around 1815 for the palatial Marine Pavilion, Brighton of George, Prince Regent, later George 1V (M. Aldrich, The Craces: Royal Decorators, 1990, fig 3:1). It relates closely to oak-coloured washstands designed for the Prince Regent's Chinese bamboo-decorated and chintz-hung bedroom apartments (J. Rutherford, The Life of the Royal Pavilion, 2003, fig 9 ).