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Lot Essay
The English marchand-mercier Edward Holmes Baldock (d.1854), Purveyor of China, Earthenware and Glass to William IV' (1832-7) and 'Purveyor of China to Queen Victoria' (1838-45), was both a retailer of 'antique' French furniture - particularly late 17th Century Boulle and Louis XV floral marquetry - as well as a manufacturer of furniture and objets de luxe in the French taste. Established in Hanway Street, London, he often employed the brand 'E.H.B.' and was responsible for the formation of many of the greatest early 19th Century collections of French furniture, including those of George IV, the Dukes of Buccleuch and Northumberland, William Beckford and George Byng, M.P..
This bureau de dame was almost certainly inspired by a Louis XV prototype executed by Bernard van Risenburgh (died in 1766), such as that formerly in the Halton collection offered by Lionel de Rothschild in these Rooms, 1 July 1976, lot 109, or that illustrated in J. Nicolay, L'Art et la Manière des Maîtres Ebénistes Franais au XVIIIe Siècle5i, Paris, 1956, p.86, fig.H.
This bureau de dame was almost certainly inspired by a Louis XV prototype executed by Bernard van Risenburgh (died in 1766), such as that formerly in the Halton collection offered by Lionel de Rothschild in these Rooms, 1 July 1976, lot 109, or that illustrated in J. Nicolay, L'Art et la Manière des Maîtres Ebénistes Franais au XVIIIe Siècle5i, Paris, 1956, p.86, fig.H.