Antique Sideboard

GEORGE IV HARDWOOD CHAIRS - BOW-FRONTED CORNER CUPBOARD - SECRETAIRE CABINET BOOKCASE - REGENCY DINING CHAIRS - ANGLO-INDIAN JARDINIERE STAND

A SET OF six GEORGE IV HARDWOOD CHAIRS, the
curved toprails carved with leaves and ending in scrolls,
and with simpler crossbars, the drop-in seats on sabre
legs, circa 1825.

A GOOD GEORGE IV GILTWOOD CONVEX MIRROR,
the plate enclosed by a rope-twist moulding surrounded
by rieh acanthus scrollwork centred by an eagle perched
on rockwork, the apron with acanthus leaves divided by
a shell and a pair of candle-arms, 4ft. lin. high by 2ft.
Win. wide (124cm. by 87cm.) circa 1820.

AN EARLY VICTORIAN ROSEWOOD CANTERBURY, the
slatted body filled with rococo scrolls with a drawer and
turned legs, lft. 8′/2in. high by lft. 9V2in. long (51cm.
by 55cm.) circa 1840.

A REGENCY GILTWOOD LOOKING GLASS, the rectangular
bevelled plate with a moulded frame with inverted
breakfront ball-decorated comice above a panel set with a Wedgwood
plaque of the Prince Regent, the sides formed of Egyptian carytids,
wide (100cm. by 64cm.)circa 1820.

A GEORGE III BOW-FRONTED CORNER CUPBOARD
with a moulded comice applied with split bobbin decoration
above a pair of cupboard doors enclosing shelves and one real flanked by
two dummy drawers, 4ft. high by 3ft. wide (122cm. by 91.5cm.) circa 1800.

A REGENCY MAHOGANY KNEEHOLE SIDEBOARD
with three frieze drawers and an arch flanked by a
pair of panelled doors, one enclosing shelves and the other with a shelf and a
bottle drawer, on bracket feet, 3ft. Vhin. high by 4ft. 3in. wide (95cm. by 130cm.) circa 1805.

A GEORGE III MAHOGANY CORNER WASH STAND,
the top eut with apertures for bowls, with a platform
and two dummy and one real drawer, on splayed legs
joined by a stretcher, 3ft. 5in. high by lft. Whin. wide
(104cm. by 47cm.) early 19th Century.

A GEORGE IV CYLINDRICAL MAHOGANY POT STOOL,
the removable moulded padded lid containing a ceramic
pot, with brass carrying handles at the sides, lft. Bin.
high (46cm.) circa 1825.

A LA TE GEORGE III SET OF BED STEPS, each step set with a tooled
leather panel, the top step enclosing a compartment, 2ft. 3in.
high by 2ft. 3in. wide (68.5cm. square) circa 1820, altered from a bedside commode.

A BRASS-MOUNTED SECRETAIRE CABINET BOOKCASE
in mahogany and rosewood, the upper part with a
moulded comice, the frieze applied with gothic tracery
above a pair of glazed doors enclosing shelves, the lower
part with a fitted drawer and a pair of panelled cupboard
doors enclosing shelves, with canted corners and solid
moulded plinth base, 6ft. 8′/2in. high by 3ft. 9′/2in. wide
(206cm. by 115cm.) early 19th Century, but the shape of
the comice and the canted corners of the lower part
suggest alteration at some date.

A SET OF SIX GEORGE IV MAHOGANY CHAIRS,
including a pair of Armchairs, the moulded frame with
curved padded backs above a caned panel, the arms on
lotus-scroll supports and the padded seats on circular
tapering legs, circa 1820.

A GEORGE IV MAHOGANY CARD TABLE with rounded corners and
swivelling top, the pillar with leaf-carved knop, on a concave
rectangular platform with canted downeurved legs, 3ft. wide (92cm.) circa 1820.

A GEORGE IV ROSEWOOD-VENEERED CANTERBURY,
the divisions each with four spindles, with turned corner
pillars and legs and a drawer, lft. 7in. wide (48cm.)
circa 1820.

A SET OF THREE REGENCY DINING CHAIRS,
including an Armchair, with reeded toprails and crossbars,
the arms with moulded scrolling supports, drop-in seats and reeded sabre legs, circa 1815.

AN ANGLO-INDIAN JARDINIERE STAND, the moulded
circular top supported on cabriole legs carved with lions’
pelts at the knee and ending in lion-paw feet, 19th
Century.

A REGENCY MAHOGANY ARMCHAIR, the curved
toprail with plain crossbar and downcurved scrolling
arms, drop-in seat on sabre legs, circa 1815, restored, one
arm damaged.
A GEORGE IV CONSOLE TABLE
with panelled frieze drawer and projecting massive
ringed and reeded baluster legs ending in brass lion-paw feet, 3ft. high by 4ft. 5Vtin. wide (92cm. by 136cm.) circa 1825.

A REGENCY MAHOGANY SIDEBOARD of bowed
breakfront form, with a central drawer above an arch
and a deep drawer at each side, on six circular tapering
legs, 6ft. wide (183cm.) circa 1815.

A GEORGE IV MAHOGANY SIDEBOARD with reeded
frieze above a short drawer flanked by a pair of panelled
cupboard doors, on ringed legs, 2ft. 11′hin. high by 5ft.
7V2in. wide (90cm. by 172cm.) circa 1825.

A DECORATIVE CHINESE SCARLET LACQUER COFFEE
TABLE, the rectangular top with a quatrefoil,
decorated in gilt with a lady and two attendants on the
terrace of a house, with gilt bracket spandrels and short square legs, lft. 3′/2in. high by 2ft. lOin. long (39cm. by 87cm.).

19th Century Gothic Revival Sideboard

The Gothic Revival sideboard had long been a popular decorative and archi-
tectural style in Europe. Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill at Twickenham, England (1749-77), was a Gothic folly of monumental scale, and even Robert Adam had worked in the Gothic style.
Unlike the purified geometricity of classical styles from Greece and Rome, European Gothic images and forms smacked of local history, were steeped with the medieval humanism of the familiar and local Gothic
cathedrals and provided a picturesque retreat from the galloping advance of modernism.
Publications such as E. J. Willson’s Specimens of Gothic Architecture (1821-23), Edward Blore’s Monumental Remains (1826), Henry Shaw’s Specimens of Ancient sideboards (1836), preached the merits of the Gothic
style. Other exponents were Batty Langley, A. W. G. Pugin, the Italians L. F. Basoli and Alessandro Sidole, and the French architect and sideboards designer Eugene Viollet-le-Duc.
The Gothic revival was reflected internationally in the sideboards of designers and makers such as Franz Xavier Fortner, Johann Wilhelm Vetter, the firms of Kimbel and Leistler of Germany and the Italian Pelagio Pelagi.
Others were Aime Chenavard and P. A. Bellange of France, Joseph Meeks & Son of New York and the talented English carvers W. G. and W. H. Rogers.
In England, and to a lesser extent in North America, an Elizabethan sideboards style, which combined Elizabethan, Jacobean and Caroline forms, was favoured in the 1830s and 1840s, when Elizabethan interior schemes were popularized through publications by Robert Bridgens, J. C. Loudon and Joseph Nash.
Gothic sideboards with claw feet, windows and patterned chimneys were built, and interiors were fitted with oak wainscoting, Glastonbury style sideboards, beds and draw tables with Jacobean and Elizabethan
strap-work and bosses, and sideboards with spiral-turned uprights modelled on Caroline forms. The latter were imitated in America, along with sideboards modelled after Daniel Marcos. In Germany, where the Gothic
style had reached a high point in cathedrals such as that at Cologne, country houses with medieval interiors were also built.
Though not necessarily any more archeologically correct, interiors in the Gothic revival style purported to be true to their name. William Burges, Norman Shaw and Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (181252) were
among the leading English exponents of this style, and designed sideboards with Gothic arches, colonettes, trefoils and other medieval motifs.
Pugin, a devout Roman Catholic who championed the Gothic as the only acceptable Christian style, advanced Gothic design in such publications as The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture (1841) and An
Apology for the Revival of Christian Architecture in England (1843). Pugin designed Gothic style sideboards characterized by thick, sturdy oak members, ogival arch-shaped supports, and naturalistic foliate carving.
In the United States, Alexander Davis (1803-92) designed Gothic interiors for Lyndhurst and Ericstan in New York, and supplied them with tables, sideboards and other oak sideboards with crockets, finials, cusps and
quatrefoil. Alexander Roux, John Jelliff and other cabinetmakers produced American Gothic sideboards.
In the mid-19th century, a reformist, and more archeologically correct approach to the Gothic sideboard, was adopted in England by architects and designers, including Pugin, William Burges, William Butterfield, G. E. Street and Charles Bevan. The art sideboards movement, which preceded the aesthetic movement that eventually evolved into the Art Nouveau style, grew from the work of Bruce Talbert, Sir Henry Cole, Christopher Dresser, T. E. Collcutt, William Godwin and Thomas Jeckyll.
Drawing on Japanese and Gothic sources, these designers produced Gothic Revival sideboard in the 1860s and 1870s that was simple and decorative, making use of light forms, flat surfaces and dark woods, incorporating richness in carved and applied ornament, stoneware and painted panels.