Page 207 - Christies Alsdorf Collection PART 2 Sept 24 2020 NYC

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A GEORGE III CREAM, POLYCHROME-PAINTED AND This table is attributed to the acclaimed peintre ébéniste George
PARCEL-GILT PIER TABLE Brookshaw (1751-1823) and was most likely designed to harmonize with
ATTRIBUTED TO GEORGE BROOKSHAW, CIRCA 1780 a room's ceiling and mantelpiece. Brookshaw touted this aesthetic in a
The demilune top decorated with a fan within concentric borders, the 1788 advertisement of 'a variety of the most elegant articles; consisting
outer border with floral garlands above a painted frieze raised on fluted of pier tables, cabinets, commodes, quines [quoins], book-cases,
tapering legs headed by paterae, the decoration to the frieze refreshed, the candilabriums, girandoles, glass frames, together with a great variety of
top repositioned with re-shimming and redecoration along the edge new-fashioned chimney-pieces, to correspond with his furniture, which
33º in. (84.5 cm.) high, 58º in. (148 cm.) wide, 21æ in. (55 cm.) deep are all made in a style peculiar to himself, in copper and marble, and
painted and burnt-in, in a manner which gives them peculiar elegance.'
$15,000-25,000
(L. Wood, 'George Brookshaw "Peintre Ebeniste par Extraordinaire",
The case of the vanishing cabinet-maker: Part 2', Apollo, June 1991,
PROVENANCE:
p. 384). Other Brookshaw furniture with related decoration includes a
With Devenish & Company, New York.
commode that may have been supplied for the Albermarle Street house
The James and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection, Chicago.
of John, 3rd Baron Monson (d.1806) (ibid., 1991, fig. 4). Another closely
related table was sold anonymously, Christie's, New York, 28 January
LITERATURE:
R.W. Symonds, The Present State of Old English Furniture, London, 1921, 1989, lot 110.
p.112, fig. 109.

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