With similarities to a hall stand sold in our King Street salerooms 14th September 2000, lot 7. James Shoolbred & Company are recorded at the Victoria & Albert Museum as furniture makers. They exhibited a very extensive selection of items in the 1878 Paris Universal Exhibition. Much of the furniture they designed was influenced by the asethetic taste popularised by the architect E.W. Godwin, Shoolbred & Company became one of the first large departmental stores in London. They expanded from a small drapery business and started to manufacture high quality furniture circa. 1870 for which they were given a Royal warrant by the mid 1880s.
A similar hall stand was sold anonoymously in these rooms, 9th March 2000, lot 1.