ATTRIBUTED TO GEORGE BROOKSHAW, CIRCA 1780

THE COMMISSION AND ATTRIBUTION
This beautifully decorated commode is attributed to the cabinet-maker George Brookshaw (1751-1823). Born in Birmingham, he married the daughter of a prosperous Birmingham gunsmith, and moved to London in 1777 to embark on a career as a cabinet-maker. He set up his business on Curzon Street by 1777, and later moved to 48 Great Marlborough Street in 1782. He specialized in painted furniture and '....a great variety of new fashioned chimney-pieces, to correspond with his furniture, which are all made in a style peculiar to himself, in copper and marble painted and burnt-in...' By 1783 he had attracted the patronage of the Prince of Wales and other prominent members of society, including Lord Delaval, the Duke of Beaufort, William Blathwayt, and almost certainly Hugh Percy (1714-1786), 1st Duke of Northumberland who likely commissioned this commode. His furniture was noted for its all-over painted decoration with figurative, landscape and, above all, floral themes. An inscription on one of his bills presented to the Prince of Wales in 1783 describes him as a ‘Peintre Ebiniste par Extraordinaire’. Indeed, the exquisitely rendered climbing roses and morning glories painted on the front of this commode are growing from pots that ingeniously echo the fluted neoclassical form of the commode’s legs, thus seamlessly integrating the painted and carved elements. The final effect is an excellent example of George Brookshaw’s mastery as both cabinet-maker and botanical artist.

This commode was formerly in the collection of Algernon Heber Percy, a descendant of the 1st Duke, and, according to family tradition, was commissioned by the Duke for Northumberland House in the Strand, London. Originally built in the early 17th century, Northumberland House was extensively remodeled under the direction of Robert Adam circa 1770-75, and it is likely the commode was supplied by Brookshaw around this date, together with a related group of painted furniture also believed to have come from Northumberland House, and sold together with this lot, Christie's, London, 23 November 1967, lots 111-115 and 117. Northumberland House survived into the 19th century but was tragically demolished in 1874 to make way for Northumberland Avenue and other metropolitan improvements to London. The house is immortalized in a celebrated view by Canaletto, while the greater part of the contents, including a magnificent collection of old master paintings and furniture, are now displayed in the state apartments at Alnwick and Syon, as well as the Victoria and Albert Museum.

BROOKSHAW’S DISAPPEARANCE
Interestingly, after 1794 Brookshaw vanishes from the cabinet-maker directories and almost completely disappears from all records for nearly a decade. Until relatively recently little had been known of Brookshaw's life, but in an article, ‘George Brookshaw: The case of the vanishing cabinet-maker’ (Apollo, May, 1991), Lucy Wood uncovered many details in the remarkable story of a man who began his career as a celebrated cabinet-maker and died a relatively unappreciated botanical artist who seems to have deliberately obscured many of the connections between his two personae.

In spite of his enormous success as a cabinet-maker, no record survives of any furniture made by him after the mid-1790s. At this point, Lucy Wood suggests that a financial or sexual scandal drove him to live and work under a false name and precipitated his embarkation on an entirely new career. She believes that A New Treatise on Flower Painting, published anonymously in 1797 and later (in the third edition of 1799) in the name of G. Brown, was actually by Brookshaw, whose A Supplement to the Treatise on Flower Painting published in 1817 has largely the same content - including eleven plates supposedly by Brookshaw but identical to those in the earlier work, where they are attributed to Brown.

Sadly, Brookshaw's work as a botanical artist apparently did not garner the attention of the prominent botanists of his day, despite the fact that in the second edition of his work he claims the support of Sir Joseph Banks. Brookshaw died in 1823 with barely a cent to his name. The anonymous preface to his Horticultural Repository, published posthumously, relates that ‘although... undistinguished in his death, his latter days were passed in comfort; and although he died poor, he did not want.’ He left one large copy of his Pomona Brittanica to his daughter Caroline, as well as an instruction that his executor should try to recover money still owed to him on the sale of the Pomona and other books, by his printers White and Co. This commode survives as a lasting material tribute to his legacy as both a cabinet-maker and botanical artist, both personae in one.