Sotheby's London, Fine Furniture And Carpets, 5 March 2008, lot 68.

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Sotheby's Londres, Fine Furniture And Carpets, 5 mars 2008, lot 68.

The name of Toms and Luscombe is less well known than the business of Town and Emanuel, which they took over sometime between 1840 and 1851. They traded from the same address at 103 New Bond St. and also specialised in fine quality Boulle or "Buhl" marquetry as it was often referred to in England. They appear in the 1851 census. (Inlay, Marquetry and Buhl Workers in England c. 1660-1850, Pat Kirkham, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 122, No. 927 {Jun., 1980}, pp. 415-416 and 419). They exhibited at the Great Exhibition of the same year and areꦜ recorded as showing "A pair pedestals in buhl and ormolu and pair of tulipwood stand and cabinets♌ ornamented with china and ormolu".

At the time of the 1862 Exhibition in London they can be found in the catalogue as exhibitors 5839 and were awarded a medal for "Buhl cabinets and tables for good design and workmanship". John Burney Waring in "Masterpieces of Industrial Art and Sculpture 1862" includes a chromolithograph of their work (Plate 252) which shows a Table and Cabinet, commissioned by the Earl of Craven. (Reproduced Jonathan Meyer, Great Exhibitions, London, New York, Paris and Philadelphia 1851-1900, Woodbridge, 2006 p.15).