A Regency Brass-Inlaid Rosewood Reading Table, Circa 1810

Supplied to William Powlett, 2nd Baron Bolton (1782-1850) for Hackwood Park, Hampshire

By descent until sold in 1935 with Hackwood to William Berry, 1st Viscount Camrose (d.1954)

Christie's London, 20-22 April 1998, lot 20

Gillows Memorandum, May 1813, Two Libraries: '2 handsome rosewood reading Tables'

Hackwood, south of Basingstoke in Hampshire, was initially built between 1683-1687 for Charles Paulet, 1st Duke of Bolton (c.1630-1699). The house was extensively refurbished in the mid-18th century by the architect John Vardy for Charles Powlett, 5th Duke of Bolton (1718-1765), who commissioned important sets of giltwood mirrors and pier tables, and seat furniture from the Wakefield firm of Wright and Elwick. Following the death in 1794 of the 6th Duke without male issue, the estate passed to his son-in-law and then grandson the 1st and 2nd Barons Bolton, who engaged Lewis Wyatt (1777–1853), nephew of the architect James Wyatt, to significantly enlarge the size of the house. Much of the new furniture required was supplied by the London and Lancaster firm of Gillows, and a memorandum dated May 1813 indicates Gillows supplied two rosewood reading tables for the house's two libraries.

In 1850 the Boltons left Hackwood to reside at Bolton Hall in Yorkshire as their seat, and the property was let to several tenants including Charles Hoare, the Earl of Wilton, Lord Curzon and the Queen of the Belgians during the First World War, before finally be sold with its contents in 1936 to the newspaper publisher William Ewart Berry, 1st Viscount Camrose (1879-1954), whose descendants owned the house until 1997.

A watercolour by Gillows of a a Drawing Room elevation that includes a table of exactly this type is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (E.47-1952).