A Late Victorian Satinwood Library Table or Desk, In the Style of Thomas Sheraton.
The top of shimmering satinwood. The frieze fitted with twelve drawers each with cross banded surround and gilt-bronze loop handle. On six tapering legs with spade shaped feet.
English, Circa 1890.
Provenance:
Robert William Hudson (1856–1937).
Villa Paloma, Monaco.
This library table or centre table dating to the late Victorian or Edwardian period is provenanced to the collection of Robert William Hudson (1856–1937).
Hudson made his fortune from soap-flakes and by then selling his business to Lever Brothers in about 1908. Hudson built a house called ‘Bidston Court’ on Bidston Hill in Birkenhead and in 1899 the Neo-Gothic Stanhope House at 46-47 Park Lane, London. He also bought the then-named Villa Coquette in 1925 and it was his second wife, Beatrice Sabina, nee Gaudengio (d. 1950), whom he married in 1932, who renamed the house as the Villa Paloma. The Villa now serves as the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco. Hudson’s art collection included important paintings by Gainsborough, Hoppner and Romney, and for furniture he favoured satinwood and formed an important collection of Sheraton style pieces, of the period and the revival, of which this table was part.
By appointment only.
