AN EARLY VICTORIAN EBONY AND EBONISED SPECIMEN WOOD CENTRE TABLE

See Christie's London, Mere Hall Knutsford, 23 May 1994, lots 85 to 92 for a suite of ebonised furniture made by Gillows, commissioned for Peter Langford-Brooke (d.1840), circa 1824. These pieces are also enriched by bobbin turning which at the time was considered 'Old English' by antiquarians and Wardour Street dealers, who prized old ebony-turned Indian furniture as being 'Elizabethan'. This style had been introduced by George Bullock in the previous decade and was popularized in pattern books of the day. (See C. Wainwright George Bullock, London, 1988, p. 102).