Foreword
The challenge to find wonderful, interesting and unseen pieces gets greater every year, particularly as so few fine pieces of English furniture are appearing on the market.
I feel that we have yet again risen to the challenge, and I would like to draw your attention to a few of my personal favourites. We have just purchased back the tripod table on page 16 after a short time, and the pair to this great table is on display in all its glory in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The pair of stools on page 70 are a great rarity and definitely from the same celebrated workshop that made the suite at Houghton Hall in Norfolk.
You will also see amongst these pages some spectacular items which have been hidden for many years, as well as others which have appeared relatively recently, but for which new research has been undertaken and additional provenance established. Prime examples include the pair of wine coolers on page 30, which now have their original invoice from Vulliamy to Lord Anson at Shugborough hall in Staffordshire, and the photograph of the desk attributed to William Hallett showing it in situ at Dingley Hall in Northamptonshire on page 47.
We look forward to seeing you in the gallery in Bruton Street or at the Masterpiece London Fair at the end of June, where we will be celebrating the tercentenary of Thomas Chippendale’s birth and holding a major selling exhibition of his work.
