Object Description
A fine quality late 19th century French style Kingwood, ormolu mounted secretaire side cabinet, having three marble shelves to either side, a central door with this beautiful hand painted Turquoise, Sevres style porcelain plaque with floral decoration, opening to reveal compartments, drawers and an inset leather top, wonderful gilded ormolu mounts, raised on elegant square tapering legs, united by a mirrored shelf beneath. 74cm wide x 41cm deep x 113cm high.
Signed; Blake, 1826-1880. Mount Street, London. Renown cabinet maker and inlayer. Pieces in the V&A and the Metropolitan Museum New York,
Robert Blake (cabinetmaker)
(active 1826–39) was the first of the Blake family of London cabinetmakers.[1] Blake is particularly known for his marquetry and for the ormolu-mounted commodes in tortoiseshell and ebony that he made in 1708–09, after a pair that André-Charles Boulle made for Louis XIV’s Chamber at the Grand Trianon, on display in the New York Frick Collection.[2] A pair of Blake commodes, completing the two in the Frick Collection, was sold at Sotheby’s on October 15, 2015,[3] for $658,000.[citation needed]
Pieces in public collections include a piano in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,[4] a writing desk in Goodwood House,[5] a circular table in Alnwick Castle,[6] and an octagonal table in the Leeds City Art Gallery at Temple Newsam House.[7]
His works often imitated the important pieces of 18th-century French furniture that francophile collectors, including the Prince of Wales (later George IV), William Beckford, Francis Seymour-Conway, 3rd Marquess of Hertford and George Watson-Taylorcollected at the beginning of the 19th century.
Blake often worked for Edward Holmes Baldock, who was a dealer in china, glass and, later, furniture to the Royal Family.[8]He is also known to have been associated with the well-known Old Bond Street dealer John Webb.[9]
Relatively little is known of the family. They are listed at 8 Stephen Street, off Tottenham Court Road, between 1826 and 1881. Robert Blake is listed in Robson’s 1823 Commercial Directory as a “buhl cutter”, at 8 Stephen Street, Tottenham Court Road, and subsequently in the 1826 Post Office Directory as a “cabinet inlayer and buhl manufacturer”. Robert Blake had four sons, George, Charles, James and Henry, who continued the firm of Robert Blake & Co. In 1840, it took the name of R. Blake & Sons and, in 1841, Blake; Geo & Brothers; and later George Blake & Co., cabinetmaker of 130 Mount Street, London, and also still in Stephen Street in 1844; George Blake in 1846-50 at 53 Mount Street; and in 1851 to around 1853 George Blake at 53 Mortimer Street.
Batch 86