A VICTORIAN ORMOLU-MOUNTED POLYCHROME IVORY, MOTHER-OF-PEARL, CUT-BRASS AND COPPER-INLAID TULIPWOOD, BURR WALNUT, EBONY, BURR MAPLE AND MARQUETRY CENTRE TABLE

The design of the present table is based upon an engraving from Richard Bridgens' Furniture with Candelabra and Interior Decoration (1838); plate 16 illustrates a 'Marqueterie Centre Table' with pedestal base and scrolled feet. Such marquetry was a particular speciality of the 'cabinet inlayer and buhl manufacturer', Robert Blake (d.1881), following the establishment of his Stephen Street manufactory in the later 1820s; and continued by the 'cabinet inlayers', Messrs. George Blake and Bros. This type of table is also associated with the fashionable London art dealer, furniture maker and restorer, Edward Holmes Baldock (d.1845) of Hanway Street, responsible for supplying French-fashioned furniture to the 5th Duke of Buccleuch; studied in depth in Geoffrey de Bellaigue's important two-part article (Connoisseur, August 1975, pp. 290-99 and Sepember 1975, pp. 18-25). Gillows was also supplying similar tables from the mid-19th century including an example sold Christie's London, 19 November 2009, lot 75, stamped 'GILLOW'. A table with related tripartite base and a very similar marquetry border on the top of the present table sold Bonhams London, 22 November 2005, lot 198.