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Lot Essay
Garlands wreath the ormolu-enriched dressing-table, which is elegantly serpentined in the George III 'French' fashion of the 1770s; while its hinged top displays beribboned grisaille flanking painted medallions that celebrate the Arts and Sciences, with laurelled trophies of musical instruments beside a youthful book-studying genius of the Art of Music.
The fashion for such flowered and medallion-decorated furniture was revived in 1870 by the South Kensington Museum's acquisition of a related and richly painted dressing-table (M. Tomlin, Catalogue of Adam Period Furniture in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 1982, U/11). The present table bears the brand of the New Oxford Street establishment of John Watson, who also retailed a related bureau-dressing-table that was inspired by the 'Tambour writing Table' pattern, issued in Thomas Shearer's, Cabinet-maker's London Book of Prices, 1788 (pl.14), sold Christie's Paris, 5 November 2003, Lot 831.
The fashion for such flowered and medallion-decorated furniture was revived in 1870 by the South Kensington Museum's acquisition of a related and richly painted dressing-table (M. Tomlin, Catalogue of Adam Period Furniture in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 1982, U/11). The present table bears the brand of the New Oxford Street establishment of John Watson, who also retailed a related bureau-dressing-table that was inspired by the 'Tambour writing Table' pattern, issued in Thomas Shearer's, Cabinet-maker's London Book of Prices, 1788 (pl.14), sold Christie's Paris, 5 November 2003, Lot 831.