FINE CHIPPENDALE STYLE MAHOGANY KIDNEY-SHAPED KNEEHOLE DESK, HAMPTON & SONS
LATE 19TH CENTURY
£7,560
Auction: Day Two: 23 February 2023 | From 10am
Description
of freestanding form, the reniform top with a moulded edge and a green leather writing surface with a gilt and embossed border, above a central concave drawer over a panelled recess and flanked by banks of four bowfront drawers, continuing to the sides and back with panels and cupboard doors richly carved with flower and foliate scrolls, all flanked and divided by fluted pilasters with foliate block capitals, below and a further central bowfront long frieze drawer flanked by dummy drawers, on a plinth base with castors, bearing an ivorine trade label HAMPTON & SONS/ PALL MALL EAST/ LONDON
Dimensions
153cm wide, 78cm high, 77cm deep
Footnote
Note: William Hampton reputedly founded the company in the 1830s, and was joined in the business by his sons George and William in 1869 when they operated from premises at 8 Pall Mall. Advertising as 'cabinet makers, upholsterers, bed & mattress makers, carpet warehousemen, retailers and antique dealers', by the end of the century the company had acquired other notable firms like James Coulson & Co., Goodall, Lamb, and Heighway, and Robson & Sons, Ltd. Hampton & Sons were themselves bought by Waring & Gillow, but continued to trade under the same name. They specialised in furnishing ships, institutions, and hotels, and included the Cunard liners Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary as clients, as well as the new Royal Yacht Britannia in 1952. In London they furnished the Dorchester and May Fair Hotels, and farther afield the palaces of Prince Nizam of Hyderabad and the Maharaja of Kashmir.