CIRCA 1815, ATTRIBUTED TO GILLOWS

The stands recall the elegance, comfort and convenience of Regency London as indicated by the publications of the connoisseur Thomas Hope, the architect C. H. Tatham and The Repository of Arts, Literature, Fashions etc issued by Rudolph Ackermann. Conceived in Roman candelabra’ fashion, for a classical hal’s corner embellishment, their branched pillars rise from altar-tripods, whose urns comprise the acorn of the sacred oak of Jupiter. His banquets are likewise evoked by festive tablets of Grecian-black ribbon-frets framed in hollow-sided tablets, while the Grecian-scrolled pilasters terminate in paterae-enriched and Vitruvian wave-scrolled trusses. Related 'Hat Stands'’ were supplied by the Tenterden Street cabinet-maker George Bullock (d.1818) in 1815 for Napoleon’s new Longwood House on St. Helena, and in 1817 for M.R.Boulton’s, Great Tew, Oxfordshire; while the pair, with Grecian-black enrichments supplied in 1814 to the Duke of Bedford at Endsleigh, Devon have been identified with Samuel Soper’s invoice of 1814 (the latter sold by descent by Christie'’s at Woburn Abbey, 20 September 2004, lot 809). Interestingly Sir John Gladstone is known to have commissioned furniture from Bullock.