Dreweatts 1759
Lot 251
Y A REGENCY ROSEWOOD, MAHOGANY AND BRASS MOUNTED WRITING TABLE ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN MCLEAN, CIRCA 1815 Incorporating brass inlay, the top with raised pierced trellis gallery, finished all around to free stand with three frieze drawers opposing false drawers and supported on legs with brass mounts with 'mille-raies' decoration 77cm high, 105cm wide, 64cm deep This writing-table, with its combination of black-figured rosewood and brass inlay in the Louis XVI style, relates to furniture associated with the Regency cabinet-maker John McLean & Son, who traded from around 1770 at Little Newport Street, Leicester Square, before relocating around 1790 to Upper Marylebone Street and then Pancras Street, Tottenham Court Road. McLean's work is characterised by the use of richly grained veneers highlighted by brass mounts and restrained neoclassical form, and was the height of sophistication in the early 19th century. He was listed among the foremost English cabinet-makers in Thomas Sheraton's The Cabinet Dictionary, 1803, and in 1806 the firm announced the opening of their warerooms 'with a new and elegant assemblage of Parisian furniture'. They were patronised by the nobility and gentry including the connoisseur 5th Earl of Jersey, supplying furniture for Middleton Park, Oxfordshire and the earl's London mansion in Berkeley Square. A related rosewood library table with the same arrangement of brass-inlaid drawers and hollowed legs with brass collars was supplied to John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmorland (d.1841), sold at the Apethorpe sale, March 1904, and again at Sotheby's Fulbeck Hall sale, Olympia, 8th October 2002, Lot 114, (£64,250)Another writing table with almost identical mounts and decoration and attributed to Mclean was sold Christie's, London, Apter Fredericks: 75 years of Important English Furniture,, 19th Jan 2021, Lot 87 (£32,500). Condition Report: Overall there are some scratches, marks, chips and abrasions consistent with age and use.The gallery with the gilding rubbed and some small splits. There are some later pins to the gilt metal borders and all but one of the inverted corner sections are missing.A pleasingly high quality neat writing table.The locks are probably later, there is one key. Please see all the additional condition report photographs through the link on the condition report email as a visual reference of condition. Condition Report Disclaimer
