Footnotes

• Provenance: J.S. Sykes, Grosvenor Square, London and thence by descent, sold in these rooms 1 July 2003, Lot 81.
  Private Collection, London.
  
  J.S. Sykes formed a key part of a close circle of British and American collectors of Georgian furniture including Eric Moller (collection sold Sotheby's, November 18, 1993), Samuel Messer (collection sold Christie's December 5, 1991), Percival Griffiths, Geoffrey Blackwell, Jim Joel and Lord Plender.
  
  All of the above formed the nuclei of their collections under the tutelage of the collector and revered furniture historian Robert Wemyss Symonds (d.1958), whose remarkable collection and library of books and photographs now forms part of the H.F. Du Pont Winterthur Museum.
  
  In the exchange of letters one can see that members of the circle met regularly at Sykes' flat to get advice on upcoming purchases and exchange information on their latest finds. Symonds published a number of books on early English furniture and clocks, notably Furniture Making in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century England, publ. The Connoisseur, 1995, which is mainly based around Symonds', Sykes' and Moller's collections.

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Category: Furniture / English Furniture and Works of Art

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