Island bookcase (étagère) by Jean-Georges Hornig. Paris, c. 1810-15. Mahogany, with slab of rosso antico marble and gilt bronze mounts on the corner pilaster supports

Island dwarf bookcase with handles, the top with marble slab mounted with gilt bronze, supported by eight Corinthian corner pilasters, the capitals with gilt-bronze mounts; two shelves and plinth platform.

The bookcase stands on a shallow plinth, raised on 4 brass castors. The corner posts are veneered in mahogany as plain pilasters, each side showing two flanking the bookshelves, the base with plain brass mounts, the capitals with cast brass capitals (with elongated scrolls, water-leaf and anthemia). Above, the top is plainly veneered on the sides, with brass handles of flower garlands pendant from rose heads on the short sides. All the corners of the piece are rounded. On the top surface a framing mount cast with water leaf surrounds a slab of green and red marble, cut with square edges. There are two shelves, the outer 'balustrade' and the inner fillets with rounded tops. The size of the books on each stage is graded, with the largest at the bottom, the height between the shelves and the distance between the 'balustrade' and the inner fillet being similarly graded. The dummy books are in trios at either end of the short side shelves, with identical bindings, the lowest shelf titled 'Voltaire', the middle, 'Rousseau', the top, 'Faublas'. The insides of the blocks against which they are set are veneered in mahogany. The slab is 1.5cm thick and is backed with a poplar panel of two planks with one end batten. This is much more coarsely finished than the rest of the piece. In the middle of each side of the poplar panel are cut-out sections to accomodate the tangs by which the mount is attached to the carcase. The carcase beneath the slab is keyed for glue. The carcase is of oak and poplar.

The Bettine, Lady Abingdon Collection. The Bequest of Mrs T. R. P. Hole

Part of a large group of pieces of French furniture, ceramics, metalwork, books and other decorative arts, from the late Empire period and earlier, acquired in Paris by Sir Charles Stuart (from 1828 1st Lord Stuart de Rothesay) (1779-1845).The Empire furnishings were probably purchased during his first period as ambassador to Paris (1815-1824), the earlier furnishings during his second embassy (1828-1830). The Empire furnishings may have been intended for 4 Carlton House Terrace which he acquired in the late 1820s and moved into in 1834. Older pieces were probably purchased for his country house, Highcliffe Castle, Hampshire (now Dorset), which was re-modelled and enlarged in the most ambitious Gothic style from 1830-1834, with some work continuing throughout the 1830s. In 1841 the Carlton Terrace House was let. The family moved their London residence to Whitehall Yard. It was possibly in 1841 (or 1845, the date of Lord Stuart de Rothesay's death) that the Empire furnishings were moved to Highcliffe.
Lord Stuart de Rothesay's collections were inherited in 1845 by his wife Elisabeth, Lady Stuart de Rothesay (née Yorke). After her death, Highcliffe House and its contents passed to his second daughter, Louisa, Lady Waterford (1818-1891) who maintained Highcliffe. She left the house and its collections to her distant cousin, Major-General Edward Stuart Wortley (1857-1934). When his younger daughter Elizabeth ('Bettine') married Montagu Bertie, 8th Earl of Abingdon in 1928, he bought the castle and its contents from his father-in-law. The Abingdons sold Highcliffe and most of its contents in 1949 but retained a number of pieces, including all those which later formed the Hole Bequest to the V&A. After her husband's death in 1963, Lady Abingdon lived much of the time with her close friends, Mr and Mrs Tahu Hole, to whom she bequeathed all her personal possessions on her death in 1978. Tahu Hole died in 1985 and a year later his widow Joyce approached the Museum and offered the collection as a bequest. She died in December 1986 and, in accordance with her will, the Museum chose those items that it wished to add to its collections. Other items from the collection were sold to benefit the Museum and the proceeds added to the funds bequeathed.

This bookcase and W.22A-1987 are both shown in the Country Life photographs of the Library at Highcliffe, flanking the chimneypiece in 1942. It did not figure in the 1949 sale.

Historical significance: This form of small open bookcase seems to have been Jean-Georges Hornig's speciality, the only type of furniture recorded as being made by him. A similar one, unmarked, was sold by Christie's London, 29 March 1979, lot 72. This bookcase and its pair (W.22b-1987) are the earliest of this form known. They must date before 1816 because of the inventory label of that year.

The form of these low bookcases seems to derive from the cabinets in boulle marquetry made from 1770-95 by Etienne Levasseur (1721-98). On the bookcases similar corner pilasters are retained, here flanking books rather than the drawers or doors of the Levasseur pieces.

This island bookcase (or étagère) is a companion piece to Museum no. W.22A-1987. Jean-Georges Hornig, the Parisian cabinetmaker, made both pieces about 1810-1815. He signed this one. This form of small open bookcase was an innovation in the early 1800s and appears to have been Hornig's speciality. The only known pieces that he marked are bookcases of this form.

Sir Charles Stuart, later Lord Stuart de Rothesay (1779-1845), owned this piece. He had been British ambassador in Paris, and became a keen collector of French 18th century furniture. He may have bought it about 1816, when he purchased the companion bookcase of the same pattern.

W.22B/1, 2-1987