GOOD GEORGE II MAHOGANY LINEN PRESS
PHILIP BELL, LONDON, CIRCA 1750
£7,500
Auction: 30 March 2011 at 12:00 BST
Description
in two parts: the Greek key carved cornice above a pair of well-figured re-entrant fielded panel doors enclosing slides; over two short and two long graduated and cockbeaded drawers with pierced brass handles, raised on bracket feet; the top right drawer bearing a pictorial paper trade label with a central rococo cartouche inscribed "Philip Bell, Cabinet Maker and Upholder, at the White Swan, Against the South Gate in, St Pauls Churchyard London, Funerals Perform'd"
Dimensions
127cm wide, 190cm high, 63cm deep
Footnote
Note: Philip Bell's father Henry, founded the family business in 1736 at the White Swan, St. Paul's Church Yard. Philip took over the firm following his father's death in 1740. Bell commissioned Matthias Darly, the engraver who worked on the plates for Chippendale's 'Director' to design a new eye-catching pictorial label in the rococo taste. Several pieces of Philip Bell labelled furniture are contained in the English furniture collection of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Williamsburg, Virginia as well as a bottle cabinet purchased in 1761 By George Washington which is still on display at Mt. Vernon. Like his contemporary, Giles Grendey, Bell favoured complex re-entrant panels and the use of high quality well-figured timbers.
Literature: C. Gilbert, `Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840`, figs. 95, 96, 99.