Notes

George Oakley (1773-1840) was one of the leading cabinetmakers of the Regency period and specialised in ebony and brass-inlay work, producing furniture in the fashionable Grecian taste. His 1802 trade card advertises 'A magazine of general and superb upholstery and cabinet furniture'. With extensive premises in Bond Street and the City, he undertook commissions for a distinguished circle of patrons, the foremost of whom was the Prince Regent at Carlton House. During a career which lasted half a century, one of his most celebrated commissions was for Charles Madryll Cheere of Papworth Hall in Cambridgeshire, where he supplied furniture with many of the characteristics and combinations including foliate motifs, 'ebony' stringing and reeded supports, as to be found on this offered lot. His reputation spread abroad where an 1804 newspaper article, published in Weimar, Germany, stated: 'all people with taste buy their furniture at Oakley's'. He worked in partnership with various cabinet-makers, including Henry Kettle, George Shackleton and John Evans.

Provenance

Esmond Stirling, son of John and Susan Stirling, Keir House, Stirling, Perthshire, Scotland. This piece was probably from Keir House, the ancestral seat of The Stirlings of Keir. The family sold Keir House in 1975.