CIRCA 1800-1805, ATTRIBUTED TO MARSH AND TATHAM

The library writing-table is typical of the French-styled furniture, characterised by the use of richly grained veneers highlighted by brass mounts and restrained neoclassical form, that was promoted by the architect designer Henry Holland (d.1806) and which was the height of sophistication in the early 19th century.
Based upon its high quality mounts in combination with black figured Brazilian rosewood and particularly the idiosyncratic stretcher pattern, the table is likely to have been supplied by the Royal cabinet-makers Marsh and Taham who worked under the direction of Holland, notably at Southill, Bedfordshire between 1796 and 1802. Here they supplied an ormolu-mounted rosewood tambour-top writing-table with a similar stretcher (see F.J.B. Watson, Southill, A Regency House, London, 1951, p.24, fig. 39.), while the magnificent mahogany writing-table supplied to Henry Baring Esq. for Somerley, Hampshire, attributed to Marsh and Tatham, features similar frieze mounts with anthemions flanking a rosette. Similar mounts were also employed on the desk supplied in 1811 by Tatham, Bailey and Saunders (successors to Marsh and Tatham) to the Prince Regent for Carlton House.