MID-19TH CENTURY

The hall stand corresponds to designs issued in 1876 by Shoolbred & Co. of Tottenham Court Road, and in 1881 by C. & R, Light. The former had started in business as drapers but added cabinet-making to their repertoire in the 1870s, employing professional designers and expanding rapidly; they gained a royal appointment by the mid 1880s. The latter was established in the early 1860s in Curtain Road, Shoreditch, then the heart of London's cabinet trade; in 1880 they issued Cabinet Furniture: Designs and Catalogue of Cabinet and Upholstery Furniture, Looking-Glasses, etc.(Edward Joy, Pictorial Dictionary of British 19th Century Furniture Design, Woodbridge, 1977, pp. 357 and 359).