BY SEDDON, SONS & SHACKLETON, CIRCA 1820

Details

A GEORGE IV ROSEWOOD WRITING-TABLE
BY SEDDON, SONS & SHACKLETON, CIRCA 1820
The rectangular top above a cushion-moulded mahogany-lined frieze drawer with convex quarter fillets, on scrolled end-supports linked by a solid undertier, on paw feet headed by foliage with sunk brass castors, the inside of the drawer with fragmentary label printed 'T. & G. SEDDON ... LONDON', the underside of the drawer inscribed in white chalk 'MON'
29½ in. (75 cm.) high; 42 in. (107 cm.) wide; 26 in. (66 cm.) deep

Literature

V. Woolf, 'Seddon Family Furniture', Antique Collector, June 1990, p. 90.
C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840, Leeds, 1976, p. 413, fig. 819.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

Seddon's robust Drawing Room 'sofa' writing-table of fine black-figured rosewood is richly carved in the French/antique or Grecian fashion of George IV's Regency. Its 'poetic' lyre-shaped and wave-scrolled trusses have their 'altar' stepped plinth raised on 'Apollo' griffin monopodia, in the manner promoted by the publications of the Rome-trained court architect C.H. Tatham (d.1842); and the connoisseur Thomas Hope's, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807. It bears the Aldersgate label adopted by Thomas Seddon (d.1864) following his inheritance of the celebrated family firm in 1815 and establishment of a partnership with his brother George Seddon (d.1856) two years later. Their firm was later involved in the furnishing of George IV's Windsor Castle and received a Royal Warrant from William IV. Seddon also adopted this pattern of griffin-supported plinth for another of their sofa-tables, whose label bore the number 885 (sold Christie's South Kensington 15 September 2004 lot 481).

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