A Regency mahogany library table circa 1810, attributed to Gillows

the shaped rectangular top with a  Morocco leather writing surface within satinwood banding and stringing, the frieze with an arrangement of ten drawers outlined with further stringing, on reeded turned legs headed by spiral fluted capitals, and with brass castors

George Eyre, d. 1837, The Warrens, Bramshaw, Hampshire and thence by family descent.

 

Almost certainly commissioned by George Eyre for the library at The Warrens, Bramshaw, Hampshire which was built by the celebrated architect John Nash between 1801-1805 (Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of English Architects, 3rd Edition, London, 1995. p.692)

The probate of George Eyre who died in 1837 refers to a `Mahogany library table with a leather top'  which is almost certainly the present lot. It is referred to with much more certainty in the probate  of George Edward Briscoe Eyre who died in 1923, the great grandson of George Eyre where it is described as `An antique inlaid mahogany library table on eight supports and castors ( late Sheraton period)'.

The design of this table closely relates to a Gillows design of 1810 for a similar elliptical ended writing table which appears in the Gillows Cabinet Maker's General Sketchbook, whilst the urn-form blocks are similar to those published by Thomas Sheraton in his Cabinet Dictionary of 1803 and Encyclopedia of 1804-7.  A table of almost identical form was sold, The Property of a Lady, Christie's London, 2 May 2002, lot 157 whilst a further table probably supplied by Gillows to the 1st Lord Brownlow for Belton House, Lincolnshire, displaying similar elliptical ends was sold by The Lord Brownlow, Belton House, Christie's house sale, 30 April-2 May 1984, lot 88.