A superb pair of Grand Tour-inspired bronze table lamps fashioned as Ionic columns, of quintessentially classical, timeless design drawn from ancient Greek examples. They are exceptional in their monumental scale and in the quality of the casting, evident down to the most minute detail.

The Ionic is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, with the Doric and the Corinthian; the Roman architect Vitruvius associated it with feminine proportions, and the Doric with the masculine. Supplied without shades, and fitted for the country of destination.

Everything one could hope for in a piece of Georgian furniture: superb quality, a great choice of timber, subtle decoration and a most remarkable colour. Rare, slightly wider proportions give it great presence.

Pieces such as this — practical, and ‘done in a neat but not an expensive manner’ to the same high standards as the grandest work — formed a significant part of Thomas Chippendale’s output. In original, untouched condition.

The crest of the Keane baronets of Cappoquin — a wildcat seated, holding a flagstaff — by Benjamin Smith II, among the finest silversmiths of the Regency and, to those who look closely, the equal of Paul Storr. Now mounted on a giallo antico and porfido verde base.

When John Keane was made a baronet in 1801, with the Act of Union, a Union Jack was added to the family’s ancient crest and appeared on everything they owned, the dinner silver included. Here the slender flag is gone — removed, perhaps, when the household was packed away before Cappoquin was burned in the Civil War, or simply lost, as slender things are.

One of the most sophisticated chair models of the Regency: generous in proportion, subtle in ornament and outstanding in quality. Veneers and Greek-key brass inlays run across the seat rails and leg joints — cabinetmaking rather than joinery, and the mark of a high-end workshop.

The scrolling inlays of the back tablets are identical to those on a sofa table from a group firmly attributed to Oakley; an identical pair is illustrated in Ronald Phillips, Fine Antique English Furniture, 2018.

A prime example of early Georgian design infused with classical symbolism. A finely carved eagle, wings outstretched in a dynamic pose, supports a polished green marble top above a frieze carved with the Greek key, the archetypal Palladian motif of order and eternity.

William Kent, who brought the Palladian style to Britain, often drew on the Roman eagle; tables such as this were the focal point of a room, made to display silver or porcelain.

An unusually large 18th-century Chinese export vase or planter, with gilt floral decoration over a deep cobalt-blue ground.

Its rare shape and grand scale make it a true collector’s piece; an identical example was sold at Christie’s New York in 2011.

An imposing four-poster of rare architectural form, distinguished above all by its boldly moulded cornice — deep and projecting, with a genuinely architectural presence.

The front posts are bold turned Doric columns veneered in mahogany over their full length, no small feat of craftsmanship. Unusually tall and unusually wide for the period, the frame is original, undisturbed and sound.

Carved from porfido rosso antico, quarried in antiquity from a single site in Egypt’s Eastern Desert, this vase is of impressive scale and beautifully drawn neoclassical form — a confident, classically correct silhouette in the manner of the great Roman hardstone workshops that supplied the Grand Tour.

With no porphyry quarried since antiquity, such works were carved from salvaged ancient fragments; a vase of this size is a considerable and increasingly rare survival.

An elegant near pair of cream and green painted armchairs of the George III period, retaining most of their original decoration. Their unusually broad proportions for the model suggest a special commission, and, softened by time and wear, they have the coveted English Country House look.

The painted medallion in one back tablet, and the carved rosette in the other, are typical of Gillows seat furniture of the early 19th century, as on the ‘Edwards’ pattern chairs supplied to Tatton Park and Broughton Hall around 1811–12. Newly recovered seat cushions with hand-made tufts.

A rare Regency table inset with a top of native English Dorset marble, enriched throughout with exotic veneers and fine brass stringing, with exquisitely turned Tuscan capitals to the side supports.

John McLean, praised by Sheraton for finishing small pieces ‘in the neatest manner’, favoured cedar for his drawers; a related small table of his is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

A splendid pair of Chinese temple jar lamps of grand scale, in the manner of the 18th century, under a rich sang de boeuf glaze — the deep copper red the French named for its colour, ‘ox blood’.

Richly coloured and of well-drawn baluster shape, they sit as happily in traditional interiors as in contemporary or eclectic ones. Supplied without shades, and fitted for the country of destination.

A very rare and good-looking model, with a distinctive paper-scrolled splat to the back. The carved decoration is kept to a minimum; the chair’s broad scale and the sculptural quality of the back and legs lend this austere model an immense grace and elegance.

It can be compared to a group of seat furniture linked to the Clerkenwell cabinet-maker Giles Grendey (d. 1780), whose label appears on a related set of twelve chairs; closely related sets were supplied to Ditchley Park and Rousham House, Oxfordshire, and Lyme Park, Cheshire, around 1735–45. Like the Lyme Park armchairs, it stands on simple round pad feet.

A fine serpentine corner cabinet in satinwood, kingwood and tulipwood marquetry beneath a shaped Siena marble top, with gilt-bronze mouldings and acanthus-cast feet. Corner pieces of such refinement are extremely rare; this one has the quality and presence of a fine commode.

Its medallion reproduces an Attic lekythos from Sir William Hamilton’s first collection, now in the British Museum. The design follows a suite of ‘Etruscan’ marquetry furniture attributed to Mayhew & Ince, of about 1775, whose corner cupboards are at Spencer House, London.

Each bracket is centred on a stylised dolphin mask set between bold scrolling volutes, descending through ribbed acanthus to a pendant flower-head — a marine conceit drawn from the sea-gods and fountains of Bernini, rendered in the lighter, scrolling idiom of the French Régence.

Boldly carved and richly patinated, they come into their full splendour once dressed.

A fine Directoire mahogany window seat of great colour and rare generous proportions. Its curved sabre legs recall the ancient Greek klismos seats depicted on Attic pottery; it is covered in sumptuous green gaufrage velvet.

Georges Jacob (1739–1814), maître ébéniste in 1765, used this ‘Etruscan’ style from the 1780s — most celebrated in the chairs he supplied to Marie-Antoinette’s dairy at Rambouillet in 1787.

Amaranth and citronnier, retaining its original leather and a Chinese Qianlong lacquer panel. The design belongs to a small known group of writing tables made in the manner of Adam Weisweiler and probably commissioned by the marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre, whose boutique on the rue Saint-Honoré was patronised by Marie-Antoinette.

Its brass column uprights derive from Weisweiler’s model for a guéridon à double colonnettes; a closely related guéridon is in the Louvre.

A large, exhibition-quality stoneware vase on its stand, with silver and gold leaf and polychrome relief decoration in the Japanese taste: kingfishers, barn swallows, a dragonfly, a butterfly and blossom.

A very similar model in the Minton archives is attributed to Christopher Dresser, pioneer of the Anglo-Japanese style; a comparable pair was shown at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1878.

A superb George III hall chair with a solid seat and armorial back, by Gillows. The crest is that of James Graham, 3rd Duke of Montrose (1755–1836), who succeeded to the dukedom in 1790 and at once began remodelling Buchanan Castle, Stirlingshire, with the architect James Playfair; the set was very likely commissioned for the castle or for his London house in Grosvenor Square.

The model appears in the Gillows Estimate Sketch Book; a set of six identical chairs made for John Christian Curwen of Workington Hall was sold at Bonhams, London, in 2012.

An extremely rare Georgian revolving whatnot, or hospitality stand. Unlike the usual examples built around a central pillar, its tiers float on sculpted brass supports, making the whole design remarkably light in appearance.

A rare Chinese export black lacquer panel, exquisitely gilt with figures and pagodas around a coat of arms bearing the mottoes of British royalty and nobility, among them the Prince of Wales’s ‘Ich Dien’. It was presented by the Prince to General George Ramsay, 9th Earl of Dalhousie (1770–1838), in thanks for his service.

The arms include the badge and motto of a Military Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, a division created in 1815, which dates the panel to just after that year. An en-suite lacquer screen with the same provenance is illustrated in Mallett’s 2002 catalogue.

A wonderfully elegant model of generous scale, with a gorgeous mellow colour and soft patina to the mahogany.

Newly reupholstered in a sumptuous Italian silk and linen damask.

A superb Regency console table, firmly attributed to George Oakley, whose New Bond Street warehouse was admired by the Royal Family in 1799 and who went on to receive a royal appointment.

Side cabinets of the same form were supplied by Oakley to Papworth Hall, Cambridgeshire, in 1810; closely related tables have been sold at Christie’s London and New York and at Sotheby’s New York.