ATTRIBUTED TO GEORGE OAKLEY, CIRCA 1805

An admirable combination of style and function, these transportable bookcases were made to stand out from a wall or in the centre of the room and probably used to wheel books from the library to a drawing room for comfortable reading or sharing with guests. Several of this type are known, A related mobile and china-railed library bookcase was formerly at St. Giles' House, Wiltshire (see M. Jourdain, Regency Furniture, London, 1965, fig. 189), and a very similar piece with brass inlaid panels, fluting, and lions head mounts to the sides sold from, Un Hotel Particulier du Faubourg Saint Germain: The Collection of the Marquis and Marquise de Ravenel; Christie’s London, Nov 21-22, 2007, lot 150 (sold £12,501). The use of rosewood in the present bookcase illustrates the growing popularity of the material during the Regency period, as well as the stylistic popularity of contrasting rich woods with luminous brass mounts. Rosewood was also a known favourite material of George Oakley (d.1840), whose Bond St. firm ‘Oakley and Co.’ attracted the patronage of the eponymous tastemaker of the Regency period, George IV, the Prince Regent at the time.