A Fine Amboyna and Marquetry Reading Table Attributed to George Blake and Edward Holmes Baldock, c.1850

A Fine Amboyna and Marquetry Reading Table Attributed to George Blake and Edward Holmes Baldock, c.1850 This highly unusual piece of furniture incorporates a scrolling quadripartite base with a cartouche-shaped top, supported on a modified baluster-form steam. All the surfaces of the piece are finely veneered in either amboyna or ebony, with panels of exceptional marquetry. The top has a wide border with scrolling floral marquetry on an ebony ground. There is also a central medallion with more floral elements including ivory accents-a signature of the Baldock and Blake productions of this period. The stem has a beautifully-inlaid vase of flowers, utilising stained woods for additional colour. The base with incurved feet is also a typical Baldock and Blake design, utilised on a centre table made by the firms for Louis Philippe of France for example. The table is adjustable in height and , designed to be used as a reading and writing table, probably in the bedroom of a very affluent young lady of the period. This is a highly sophisticated piece of furniture that will add a fine accent to any interior. Ivory certificate: MHNYDRV2 Edward Holmes Baldock and the Blake Family E. H. Baldock seems to have begun his career c.1805 as an antique dealer, selling everything from china and bronzes to Oriental art and, later, furniture. He was initially a specialist in china and glass, and was “purveyor of earthenware and glass” to William IV and “purveyor of china” to Queen Victoria. By 1821, his trade adverts began to reflect an interest in “antique….and ornamental furniture”. Baldock appears to have supplied antique pieces as well as acting as something of a 19th century machand mercier in commissioning new pieces of exceptional quality, frequently incorporating fine ormolu mounts and marquetry of the highest standard. Martin Levy has argued convincingly that the fine marquetry on pieces supplied by Baldock was likely to have been created in the workshops of the Blake family of marquetry specialists (see M. Levy E.H.Baldock and the Blake Family: Further Evidence in Furniture History Society Newsletter No. 158, May 2005). The Blake dynasty of inlay specialists was founded around 1820 by Robert Blake and then continued through various changes of name and location until, by the 1840s, their workshops were based in the Tottenham Court Road area and Mount Street in Mayfair.