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Bookcase
The design and manufacture attributed to George Bullock
(1782/3-1818)
Laburnum and ebony; brass and brass grilles; Mona marble.
(Later internal glass doors removed; brass handles to internal drawers replaced)
96 in (244 cm) x 49 1/2 in (125.7 cm) x 17 1/4 in (44 cm)
English (Liverpool), circa 1810
Henry Blundell (1724-1810) patronised, encouraged and promoted Bullock from as early as 1801 (before Bullock had left Birmingham for Liverpool) until his death in 1810.
There are records of payments by Blundell to Bullock and some of these must have related to furniture.
There is, for example, an octagonal table top remaining in the Pantheon at Ince Blundell Hall which can be confidently attributed to Bullock.
Correspondence in private collections shows that Bullock was also involved with Blundell’s sons-in-law, Stephen Tempest of Broughton Hall, Yorkshire and Thomas Stonor of Stonor Park, Oxfordshire.
Other bookcases comparable to the present example have been recorded. An almost identical version, together with a narrower single door bookcase is illustrated in Margaret Jourdain, Regency Furniture 1795-1820, London, 1934, 1948 edn, figs 143 and 144.
It is conceivable that these bookcases, as well as the present example, were all originally at Ince Blundell Hall. A further two-door bookcase, with a slightly shorter cornice, was sold at Christie’s, London, 16 July 1992, lot 198.
Apart from the documentary evidence of Bullock’s involvement at Ince Blundell Hall, stylistic features of the bookcase further strengthen the attribution.
The type of brass inlay around the drawers, the use of Mona marble and the boldly Soanian design, perhaps reflecting the influence of Joseph Gandy (1771-1843), all seem consistent with Bullock’s documented early work.
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