A pair of Regency calamander, ebony and brass-inlaid card tables, circa 1810, attributed to George Oakley

James Brett, Norwich.

The present pair of nineteenth-century card tables, attributed to George Oakley (1773-1840), are exemplary of the values instilled during the Regency Period for reinterpretation as opposed to slavish imitation of antiquity models to meet modern manners, customs and materials. As spaces became more intimate, small tables of all kinds with multifunctional purposes began being placed about a room. The hinged ‘D’ shaped tops when closed and positioned against the wall as pier tables became the preferred profile by the end of the eighteenth century. Oakley’s use of calamander veneer with brass inlays of stars and palmettes shows his knowledge of the advanced materials and techniques and the expert craftsmanship required for this seamless decorative surface in such a sophisticated design. The predominantly flat decoration allows the areas of spareness and purity of shape to be defined. The baize-lined playing surface, brass rosette mounts and splayed legs with oak leaf caps on castors make these tables decidedly English.   

The Regency period saw a mixture of ancient motifs with a particular preoccupation of the ‘Greek’ style, as popularized by Thomas Hope’s Household Furniture and Interior Decoration of 1807 in England. Distinguished by novelty and simplicity of outline with solidity, this was accomplished using striking contrasts of polished exotic woods with brass inlay which gradually replaced the lighter wood of the Adam period. A subscriber to Thomas Sheraton’s Drawing Book, Oakley would have been aware of the suggested use of inlaid brass for decoration, in place of painting and japanning, for its durability and strength as described in 1803. [i] In the same Drawing Book, Sheraton also mentions ‘coromandel’ (also known as calamander) as ‘a foreign wood lately introduced into England, and is much in use by cabinet-makers for banding’.[ii] This exotic hardwood is very difficult to extract, made up of several types of ebony species that grow on rock clefts in the Indian sub-continent.[iii] The light brown ground colour with dark streaks in a mostly straight and fine grain makes it ideal for cabinet-work. Oakley has pushed this material beyond the banding to skilfully finish the entire table. Its glossy finish shows the fashion for French polish in England, introduced after the peace with France in 1814. This quickly became regarded as the best finish for bringing out the beauty and contrast of grains.[iv]

The quality and stock of Oakley’s large assortment of furnishings and textiles across multiple addresses in London suggests a flourishing business. The firm was established in 1782 as an ‘upholder’ with a move to a larger warehouse in 1786 at St. Paul’s Churchyard. This was followed by the opening of a showroom, ‘Magazine of General and Superb Upholstery and Cabinet Furniture’ on fashionable Old Bond Street in 1800. They were known to receive high-praise in various press outlets that were far reaching, with the 1801 Journal des Luxus und der Moden (Weimar) noting ‘everyone of taste and discrimination making their purchases at Oakley’s, the most tasteful of London’s cabinet-makers’.[v] Such tastemakers included various members of the Royal Family, as recorded in the 1799 Morning Chronicle ‘the Queen and Princesses, accompanied by the Duke and Duchess of York made a tour of the most elegant shops and manufactories in the different lines of the useful arts. We saw them at Oakley and Shackleton’s magazine of furniture in Old Bond Street…and thus Their Majesties, in the prevailing taste for magnificence in every article of decoration, give the most flattering encouragement to the arts by their countenance and protection’.[vi] A pair of card tables in veneered rosewood and inlaid brass with splayed legs attributed to Oakley is held in the Royal Collection Trust (RCIN 3201), believed to be acquired by Queen Mary.  

A similar pair was designed in 1810 for Charles Madryll Cheere as part of a larger commission for Papworth Hall, Cambridgeshire, sold at Christies New York, 23 Nov 2006, lot 67.

[i] Ralph Fastnedge, Sheraton Furniture, London, 1962, p.46.

[ii] As referenced in Clive Edwards, Encyclopaedia of Furniture Materials, Trades and Techniques, p. 37.

[iii] Ibidem

[iv] The Regency Period: 1810-1830, The Connoisseur Period Guides, London, 1958, p. 43

[v] As quoted by Margaret Jourdain, Regency Furniture: 1795-1830, London, 1965, p. 109.

[vi] As quoted in BIFMO, accessible at < https://bifmo.furniturehistorysociety.org/entry/oakley-george-1773-1840>