A George II mahogany bookcase, circa 1740-1750

with a dentil and egg and dart cornice above a pair of doors, each with six glazed panels, the astragals finely carved with conforming egg and dart decoration, the base with a leaf and Greek key carved frieze surmounting a pair of fielded panelled doors enclosing a divided cupboard with two shelves to each side, on a carved and moulded plinth base

243cm high, 147.5cm wide, 48cm deep; 7ft. 11 1/2 in., 4ft. 9in., 1ft. 7in.

Condition Report:
Superlative colour and form. Glass largely original with an attractive 'watery' feel. Two circular marks below escutcheons, from later handles, removed before 1955 as they are not visible when the piece was illustrated in Connoisseur. The shelves of the glazed cupboards are old, but possibly later. Orange-pinky wash to lower cupboard interior. Sides with some old veneer patches and age cracks. Two interior shelves to the base cupboard later. Acanthus frieze above lower cupboard with more recent chips to right side, should polish out. Typical old chips, marks and scratches associated with a working piece of furniture from a Country House. Of pleasing architectural form, size and colour.

Catalogue Note:
This bookcase is a characteristic example of the case furniture created in the second quarter of the eighteenth century, when the Palladian style practised by William Kent and advocated by the 3rd Earl of Burlington was at its apex. This classicising taste saw the introduction of numerous architectural motifs from Antiquity into English furniture, including several that can be observed on the present lot: the Greek key on the frieze above the doors, the floral variation on the bead-and-reel motif just beneath it, the egg-and-dart borders throughout and the dentils to the upper cornice are all originally from classical architecture. In his City and Country Builder’s and Workman’s Treasury of Designs (1741), the designer Batty Langley further systematised this link between architecture and furniture by creating furniture designs that conformed to the classical orders as formalised in the Renaissance – his “Ionick [sic] Book Case” features dentils and six windows, much like the present lot.1 Usually, Kentian bookcases would include a pediment or a broken pediment, allowing the bookcase to be “surmounted by a bust or a series of busts, generally of classical worthies”.2 The furniture-makers William Vile and John Cobb are associated with the later examples of this style,3 but the more active maker in the 1740s was William Hallett, to whom Vile was apprenticed until at least 1749. A bookcase attributed to Hallett sold at Sotheby’s, 8th March 2016, lot 104, while a circa 1750 bookcase attributed to Hallett or Vile and Cobb sold at Christie’s London, 19th January 2021, lot 25. The only known piece to be signed by Hallett, a cabinet on chest, sold at Christie’s New York, 14th October 2009, lot 54. An important bookcase in the Kentian manner from Stanwick Park sold at Sotheby’s London, 9th July 2014, lot 8. There are a pair of mahogany library bookcases, worthy of comparison, which share similar carved detail. These were part of a set of four supplied to Sir Thomas Robinson of Rokeby Hall in Yorkshire, circa 1750, sold Christie's New York, 25th April 2008, lot 100. Interestingly Rokeby was not far from Stanwick Park.

1 ‘B. L. Surveyor’ [Batty Langley], The City and Country Builder’s and Workman’s Treasury of Design: Or the Art of Drawing and Working the Ornamental Parts of Architecture, London, 1741, p.347, pl. CLXI. Available at: [accessed 27th February 2024]

2 Percy Macquoid and Ralph Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, rev. ed., London, 1954, p.84.

3 See Geoffrey Beard and Christopher Gilbert (ed.), Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840, Leeds, 1986, p.388: “certain items of furniture […] which can be dated to c. 1750 are more likely to be by William Hallett snr than his journeyman William Vile, and that Vile continued the ‘style’ in later years.”

Provenance:
Probably Sir Nicholas Bayly, 2nd Bart. (1709–1782) and at Beaudesert, Staffordshire before 1921.