Lot Essay
This elliptic and hollow-cornered table-top pattern was introduced around 1780 and featured in Messrs. A. Hepplewhite & Co.'s Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, 1788 (pl. 66). Flower festooned furniture was also popularised around 1780s by the Mayfair botanical artist George Brookshaw (d. 1823) of Curzon Street and Great Marlborough Street, who served as Peintre-ébéniste to George, Prince of Wales, later George IV. A related flower-painted table of this form has been confidently attributed to the Long Acre firm, titled from 1790 as Seddon, Sons and Shackleton (C. Gilbert, 'Seddon, Sons & Shackleton', Furniture History, 1997, pp. 1-5, fig. 21).