A VICTORIAN MARQUETRY CENTRE TABLE 

A highly unusual mid 19th century amboyna circular breakfast table, the top is inlaid with concentric circles of elaborate scrolling foliage with, at the centre, a floral bouquet surrounded by butterflies. The base is fashioned as a tripod with inturned scrolls. Each face is lavishly inlaid with stylised classical marquetry and foliate designs.
Attributed to Edward Holmes Baldock.

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Edward Holmes Baldock was a furniture dealer and restorer known to
operate from premises in Hanway Street, London from 1805. His business
and specialisation steadily expanded and in 1821 he was described in
the Post Office Directories as an ‘antique furniture and ornamental china
dealer’, this entry was re-defined in 1826 to ‘buying, selling, exchanging
and valuing China, Cabinets, Screens, Bronzes etc’. In addition to
restoring existing furniture, he also produced designs for new pieces and
had them made to his specifications. One of his commissions was to
produce designs for a suite of bedroom furniture in 1841 for the Duke
of Buccleuch. A design for a table in the Buccleuch papers is annotated,
‘No. 3 Amboyna wood ground with coloured flowers’ which is almost
certainly the preliminary sketch for a table which was made later. He is
known for a number of well-constructed, and in certain cases, finely inlaid
pieces of furniture marked with his initials, ‘EHB’. Some of these pieces
were pastiches of 18th century French furniture and others are executed
in contemporary English style.

Baldock’s bills survive in many important archives including the Windsor
Royal Archives, George IV’s papers 1827-28, the Duke of Buccleuch
and Queensbury’s private archives and the Duke of Northumberland’s
private archives amongst many others.

CONDITION REPORT ON REQUEST.