249.00cm wide
248.00cm high
23.00cm deep
(98.03 inches wide 97.64 inches high 9.06 inches deep)
Description
A very good fully provenanced George III Period Mahogany Secretaire Breakfront Bookcase, the upper part with a moulded cornice and ebony inlaid dentil frieze, the adjustable shelves enclosed by Gothic and Ogee pointed arched glazed doors, the lower part having a central ebony and boxwood line inlaid Secretaire Drawer with a well fitted interior above two panelled doors opening to show sliding trays and flanked by further panelled doors containing four further drawers each, the whole raised on a plinth base.
Ca.1780
N.B. Full provenance available to purchaser.
Provenance
Provenance: This bookcasewas made for John Watson (b.1725-d1804) and his wife Hannah (nee Wilkinson) (b.1729-d.1799).
The Mahogany for it was brought from the West Indies where they had business interests.
Both of them were from prosperous merchant families. John had been apprenticed to Hannah’s father - John Wilkinson – and subsequently became his full business partner. Family records include portraits of John and Hannah and photocopies of these together with some information about their children accompany these notes.
Records of the Watson Family name have been traced back to 1645. The Wilkinson Line is known back to a john Noble of Penruddick, Cumberland at around 1600.
John and Hannah Watson for whom the bookcase was made lived in the Midlands at Kiddrminster, Worcestershire. There were also some family connections with the carpet industry there. The Bookcase will have passed on through one of their sons, Joseph Watson. Joseph left his “Genealogical account of My Family so far” which he produced in 1837 and this has helped his heirs to trace the family history.
Joseph’s name does not appear among the children listed on the particular page which contained the portraits as he came after Mary and it was probably on the next page. He was born in 1768, presumably the youngest of the family and, despite this, was the next to inherit the bookcase.
Joseph died in Islington in 1849 and it passed to his daughter Maris who lived in Blackheath after her marriage. It has subsequently been in other family homes in Bristol, Somerset and Devon.
Price
gbp 50000.00 (Pound Sterling)
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