CIRCA 1820-30

Boulle-filigreed furniture and works of art provided an important element for stately apartments furnished in the Louis XIV antiquarian style, promoted around 1800 by the Carlton House mansion of George, Prince of Wales, later George IV (W.H. Pyne, The History of Carlton House, The History of the Royal Residences, 1819). Thomas Parker, renowned for the production of Boulle-revival work was established at 19 Air Street, Piccadilly from 1808-17 and then at 22 Warwick Street, Golden Square from 1817-27 and finally at 32 Warwick Street until 1830 after which date the firm closed. The Prince Regent favoured the firm as Parker supplied the prince with a pair of caskets-on-stands for Carlton House in January 1813 (the companion pair at Woburn Abbey: see P. van Duin, 'Two Pairs of Boulle caskets on stands by Thomas Parker, Furniture History, 1989, pp. 214-217); the pair of drum tables in April 1814 at a cost of £315 (Carlton House: The Past Glories of George IV's Palace, 1991, p. 108) and a second pair of drum tables in 1817 costing £210. George Wall Parker is recorded in Piccadilly in 1818 and was clearly related to Thomas Parker (Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture, Leeds, 1996, p. 43). Both men were Freemen of Canterbury and other cabinet-making Parkers are recorded in Kent, including John Parker, established in Deal from 1800-1829, and a Thomas Parker recorded in Canterbury in 1796.