Lot Essay
The largescale use of partridgewood in the present lot is most unusual. It was identified in J.S Prideaux's The Cabinet-Makers's Assistant, London, 1853 as 'chiefly used in small cabinets and general turnery,... walking sticks, umbrella and parasol handles', and where it appears on furniture of the late 18th and early 19th centuries it is generally employed as banding (see F.Lewis Hinckley, Directory of the Historic Cabinet Woods, New York, 1960, pp. 152 - 154).