EARLY 19TH CENTURY

細節

A REGENCY GILT-METAL MOUNTED MAHOGANY AND EBONY-STRUNG CARLTON HOUSE DESK
EARLY 19TH CENTURY
The green leather-lined writing-surface with ratcheted reading-support and superstructure with six short drawers in two columns flanked by two doors and with stepped side with a simulated drawer above two drawers, the top with pierced gallery, above three short drawers and on square tapering legs terminating in brass caps and castors, the drawers lined in cedarwood
42 in. (107 cm.) high, 63 in. (160 cm.) wide, 33 in. (83 cm.) deep

來源

Possibly commissioned by Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk and by descent.
Bernard Marmaduke, 16th Duke of Norfolk, Norfolk House, St. James's Square, sold Christie's, London, 7 February 1938, lot 162 (£273 to H.M. Lee).
The Hon. H.A. Vivian Smith, sold Christie's, London, 22 October 1953, lot 87 (£462 to Rubin [?]).
The Hon. Mrs. E.A. Wallace, sold Christie's, London, 15 November 1990, lot 126.

拍品專文

A French-fashioned writing-table, comprising a circular-backed bureau-plat with galleried cartonnier nest-of-drawers, featured in 1814 in Rudolph Ackermann's Repository of Arts. He named it as a 'Carlton House table', which implied that its form had been invented for the London palace of George, Prince of Wales, later George IV (H. Roberts, 'The First Carlton House Table?', Furniture History, 1995, pp. 124 - 128). A related 'Gentleman's Writing Table' pattern, incorporating fifteen drawers and two cupboards, was invented by George Hepplewhite (d. 1786) and later appeared, together with Hepplewhite's hall chair that had been executed with good effect for his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, in The Cabinet-Maker's London Book of Prices, 2nd ed., 1793, pl. 21. In addition, the alternate cartonnier pattern featured an inlaid tablet fillet with French-fashioned hollow corners, as appears in satinwood fillets on the present cupboards. Also in 1793, a related 'Lady's Drawing and Writing Table' pattern, with fretted brass rim round the top part was issued in Thomas Sheraton's Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterers Drawing Book, (part III, pl. L). The present table's silken-figured tablets of fine mahogany are ebony banded in the George III Etruscan Grecian fashion; while the rectilinear and cut-corned handle pattern, with octagonal plates, was introduced in the 1780's.

This writing-table is likely to have formed part of the furnishings commissioned by Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk (d. 1815), whose support for Liberty was registered by his inscription of Libertati on the foundation stone of his banqueting hall at Arundel Castle, Sussex and the naming of his Greystoke Farms after the American victories of Fort Putnam and Bunker Hill. In the early 20th century, the table featured amongst the furnishings of the State Apartment of the family's St. James's Square mansion, which was built in the mid-18th century by architect Matthew Brettingham. The table subsequently featured in the historic three day Norfolk House sale held by Christie's on the premises in St. James's Square in 1938.