An Extremely Rare and Important Pair of Regency Period Console Tables With Shelves-or Side Pieces in Calamander Wood With Fine Ormolu Mounts. Crucially Retaining the Original Maker’s Labels for Charles Smith Of Grosvenor Street, London

An Extremely Rare and Important Pair of Regency Period Console Tables With Shelves-or Side Pieces in Calamander Wood With Fine Ormolu Mounts. Crucially Retaining the Original Maker’s Labels for Charles Smith Of Grosvenor Street, London

An Extremely Rare and Important Pair of Regency Period Console Tables With Shelves-or Side Pieces in Calamander Wood With Fine Ormolu Mounts. Crucially Retaining the Original Maker’s Labels for Charles Smith Of Grosvenor Street, London

These pieces are designed in the Egyptian taste popularised by some of the important furniture designers and connoisseurs of the period such as Thomas Hope and George Smith. The use of exotic calamander wood from Sri Lanka-a sure sign of an expensive commission-and the lovely ormolu mounts might normally have been expected to point to an attribution to a firm such as George Oakley. Excitingly, these pieces retain their maker’s labels and so we can say with certainty that they were made by Charles Smith of 70 Lower Grosvenor Street, Grosvenor Square, London.

No other labelled pieces by the firm seem to have been recorded-there are none in Christopher Gilbert’s Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840 and searches through past sale records have not turned up any other examples. What makes this especially significant is that the firm of Charles Smith and its various iterations. is reasonably well recorded and the commissions which they received were second to none during the period in which they operated.

Charles Smith is believed to have begun trading on his own account c.1784 at 69 Lower Grosvenor Street and as early as 1790 he claimed to be “upholsterer to their majesties”. The firm began trading as Charles Smith and Co in 1791 as Smith partnered with a Robert Donald Smith and this partnership lasted until at least 1794. by 1806, the firms premises, though still in actual fact the same, had been re-numbered to 70 Lower Grosvenor Street and Smith was now in partnership with George Key, trading as Smith and Key. It was under this name that the firm was mentioned by Thomas Sheraton in his Cabinet Dictionary and the firm were listed as master cabinet makers.

An advert in the London Sun newspaper, dated the 12^th of February 1806 and reproduced below, announced the ending of the partnership with Key and the reversion to the trading name of Charles Smith. The advert is also interesting in that it claims that the manufacturing side of the business had always been the responsibility of Smith himself and so production would “go on as before”.

As we are well known specialists in maritime works of art, we were particularly interested to find out that Smith’s wife Lucy had an interesting maritime connection. Lucy Smith is mentioned in the Lord Chamberlain’s accounts between c.1783 and 1805 in relation to furnishings supplied to the Royal residences and offices but, even more intriguingly, she was also responsible for the furnishing of the Royal yachts Mary and Royal Charlotte. It is at present unknown whether these commissions were undertaken in her own name or under the name of her husband as she is known to have receipted bills sent by her husband in other cases and this may have also been the case here.

Charles Smith was insured by the Sun Insurance Company in 1810 and his cover for stock and utensils used to conduct his business amounted to £3500, indicating a large business of considerable importance. Also in this year Smith entered in to partnership with John Bywater, this partnership apparently lasting until Smith’s death in 1825.

Outside of his work for the Royal family, Smith had a string of other important recorded commissions including work at Harewood House in Yorkshire (his largest known commission outside of Royal work) and for David Garrick’s widow. These commissions are interesting as both of these clients had previously used Thomas Chippendale for the majority of their furniture-a compliment to Charles Smith if ever there was one. In addition to these commissions, furniture by Smith was supplied to Shuborough-where two sofas and ten chairs known to be by him survive, Heaton Hall and Audley End. Perhaps most intriguing of all is the fact that Smith also furnished the Royal boxes for George III and the Prince of Wales at the Drury Lane Theatre under the direction of Henry Holland. It is tempting to wonder whether Holland might have had any connection with the design of our pieces as a result.

The newspaper advert quoted above and the name changes for the firm suggest a likely date of production for these pieces between 1806 and 1810. They are rare survivals as labelled pieces by a major London maker with many famous commissions but few pieces with secure attributions and they will suit a connoisseur collector who appreciates both their history and their very practical, decorative qualities.