Beschreibung:

A Fine George II carved mahogany, dressing commode , circa 1735, possibly by John Boson and Cornelius Martin or Benjamin Goodison now with an eared rectangular green marble slab top, the four long graduated drawers with original gilt-brass handles and escutcheons, flanked by a pair of guilloche-carved corbel pilasters headed by acanthus leaves and lion masks holding brass rings, the panelled sides with further conforming pilasters, on paterae-carved bracket feet, 80cm high, 123cm wide, 54cm deep, the drawer retaining a label with ducal coronet above a monogram contained within roundel bearing the motto `honi soit qui mal y pense', the back bearing a small paper label 'LADY LEVER COLLECTION' together with the inventory number 'X3933' and another paper manuscript label 'KENT ROOM S. RIGHT', the back also with chalk inscriptions `518 NX' and 'C185', originally with a fold-over top and pull-out supporting front pilasters; the top drawer probably originally fitted. Provenance: 'M. Harris & Sons, sold 17 June 1920 (£350) to William Lever, 1 st Viscount Leverhulme (1851-1925) The Leverhulme Collection. The Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight. Sold Christie's London, 27 May 1965, Lot 74 (£472.10s) The architectural form of the present lot, featuring distinctive lion mask pilasters with brass ring handles, relates to a group of documented 18th furniture associated with the furniture makers John Boson (d.1743) and Benjamin Goodison or Cornelius Martin (d.1767). Both makers were associated with the celebrated Royal architect designer William Kent (d.1745) who was the protégé of Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington. The group includes the 'Owl' tables supplied by Boson for the Summer Parlour at Chiswick House in 1735 (See. T. Rosoman, 'The decoration and use of the principal apartments at Chiswick House 1727-7-`, Burlington Magazine, October 1985). Another related desk from Viscount Downe's collection at Wynham Abbey, Yorkshire, is illustrated in F. L. Hinckley, Metropolitan Furniture of the Georgian Years, New York, 1988, p. 78, pl. 44, fig. 93. A further library table supplied to 2nd Duke of Montague for Montague House, Northamptonshire, circa 1737-41 has been traditionally attributed to Goodison on the basis of invoices supporting the assertion that Goodison was the principal cabinet-maker to the Duke. However the discovery of payments in the Montagu accounts to John Boson Summer Exhibition Catalogue, 1987) calls this into question. A George II gilt-brass mounted and marble topped commode attributed to either Boson or Goodison, with provenance from the Dukes of Northumberland, sold Sotheby's, London, 'Treasures including selected works from the collections of the Dukes of Northumberland', 9 July 2014, lot 7. Shortly prior to the sale of this lot, a much anticipated exhibition William Kent Designing Georgian Britain, was held at the Bard Graduate Center, New York in September 2013. This gave rise to certain key items being conserved before being loaned to either the Bard Graduate Center or the Victoria& Albert Museum where the exhibitions were staged consecutively first in New York and followed by London. Included in the conservation was the aforementioned Owl Suite, by John Boson comprising a pair of mahogany and parcel-gilt dressing commodes and companion gilt pier glasses. The evidence for the suite's attribution to Boson is based on a receipt dated 11 September 1735, made out to Lady Burlington who had commissioned the complete furnishing of her Garden Room (later referred to as the Summer Parlour) at Chiswick House. During the course of the 'Owl' dressing commodes conservation, their Victorian leather-lined tops were removed in order to reveal the original top surfaces of the commodes. Interestingly this revealed fragments of a green textile, likely to have been a silk velvet fabric matching that of the green silk damask decorating the walls of the Garden Room at Chiswick during the 1730s. However the most exci