A Set of Three Regency Part-Ebonized Oak Window Seats attributed to George Bullock Circa 1815

Anonymous sale, Christie’s, London, April 14, 1988, lot 15

This set of window seats can be attributed to the workshop of George Bullock (b.1777-1778 – d.1818). Bullock had a varied career, having various partners and cabinet works both in Liverpool and London until his death; although, it is clear that he was originally trained as a sculptor and modeler. It was noted in August 1798 that although he had ‘gained such repute in Birmingham’ he was ‘returning to London, the statue business not answering his expectations’. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1804, and is then recorded in Liverpool in 1804 as a ‘Modeller and Sculptor’. In the same year he formed a partnership with William Stoakes, a ‘Looking Glass Manufacturer’, as ‘Bullock and Stoakes Cabinet Makers, General Furnishers and Marble Workers, 48 Church Street’. Their premises were called the ‘Grecian Room’, but by 1807 the partnership was over, Bullock moving his ‘Grecian Room’ to 23 Bold Street. In 1809-1810 he joined Soane’s assistant J. M. Gandy in a partnership styled ‘Bullock, George and Joseph Gandy, architects, modelers, sculptors, marble masons, cabinet makers and upholsterers’ at 55 Church Street. Again the partnership did not prosper and by late 1810 Bullock was living in London, opening in 1813 at the Grecian Rooms, Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly as 'George Bullock, upholsterers'. In 1815 he was established as ‘Sculptor, 4 Tenterden Street, Hanover Square, Mona Marble and Furniture Works, Oxford Street’. 

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

Clive Wainwright, George Bullock: Cabinet Maker, 1988

Christie’s, house sale, Great Tew, Oxfordshire, May 27-29, 1987, lot 31