A GEORGE III BLACK AND GILT-JAPANNED STANDING SHELF

William Linnell (d.1763), a specialist carver, established his workshop in Long Acre and later moved to his fashionable premises at Berkeley Square. He was joined by his son John (d.1796) in 1749. John had trained as an artist in the St. Martin's Lane Academy to become the firm's designer. A number of orders for japanned furniture were received by the Linnell workshops between 1749 and William's death in 1763, but perhaps the most famous commission was from the 4th Duke of Beaufort to provide a suite of furniture for a bedroom in the Chinese taste at Badminton House, Gloucestershire. This intricate Chinoiserie standing shelf is nearly identical to a set of two pairs of standing shelves supplied by the Linnells to the Duke between 1752 and 1754 for the Chinese Bedroom.

One of the aforementioned shelves is illustrated in H. Hayward and P. Kirkham, William and John Linnell, London, 1980, vol. II, fig. 218, p. 113 (see image 5), another currently resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York [64.101.1125], having been gifted from the collection of Judge Irwin Untermeyer in 1964, who acquired it from Frank Partridge in 1921, who purchased it from the 9th Duke of Beaufort, sold Christie’s London, 30 June 1921, lot 50 or 51, and a third from this group of shelves is in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight.