Object Description
A large late Regency mahogany partner’s library table attributed to Gillows, the leather inset rectangular top above six frieze drawers, the frieze cross banded, raised on powerful double scroll legs carved with acanthus leaves, the gadrooned pad feet disguising the original brass castors. English, circa 1815.
Footnote: This table is typical of the bold ‘neo-baroque’, or rococo revival style, first promoted and thereafter rapidly popularised in England by the Gillows firm during the latter half of the 1820s. The design for this particular model appears in a drawing of a library layout (or room plan) executed by Gillows, possibly in conjunction with Ferguson and Co., upon behalf of J. Pultenay Esq. in circa 1829. It is illustrated in S.E. Stuart, Gillows of Lancaster and London, 1730-1840, Vol. II, 2008, Woodbridge, pl. E4, pp.’s 348-349, and is housed at Lancaster City Museums, LM 55.20/33.
A mahogany library table attributed to Gillows, likewise dated circa 1830, which is virtually identical to the present example, was sold at Bonhams, 30 September 2008, The Knightsbridge Sale, lot 262
An important rosewood and brass inlaid library table attributed to Gillows, from the period 1820-1830, features in Ibid, Vol. I, pl. 308, p. 291. This has closely comparable legs to the above and is of equivalently large proportions. Another variant to the current lot, which incorporates very similar legs, is one of a pair of rosewood pier tables attributed to Gillow and Co. also dating to the 1820s, that is pictured in Ibid, Vol. II, pl. E24, p. 359. A further related piece is a rosewood side cabinet or commode attributed to Gillows, again made during 1820-1830 but most likely with elaborate brass ‘Buhl’ inlaid panels provided by Louis Constantin Le Gaigneur, which appears in Ibid, Vol. II, pl. 544, p. 17