Queries.

THE GILLOWs were a well known family of English furniture makers and retailers in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in London and Lancaster. Robert Gillow I became a freeman in Lancaster about 1728 or 1729, and his earliest surviving account book, from 1731, indicates that he was both a joiner and a furniture maker. About 1780, the Gillows opened a London branch. In May 1785 a shipment of Gillow and Company or Gillows, furniture from Lancaster arrived in Boston for Thomas English. Unmarked mahogany furniture possibly from this shipment is being sought from the descendants of English, including the following families: Adams, Bethune, Jones, Willard, and Amory in Boston; Gilman, Robbins, Stein, and Weiss New York City; Alston, Dunkin, Huger, and Hunt in Charleston; and Makepeace in Baltimore. Anyone owning pieces or knowing the whereabouts of Gillows furniture, please contact:

Brigitte Fletcher

416 Marlborough Street, #503, Boston, Massachusetts 02115

THE JEWELER F. Walter Lawrence, of New York City will be the subject of an exhibition at the Newark Museum in New Jersey in late spring 2004, as well as a forthcoming article in The Magazine ANTIQUES. Lawrence opened his business in 1895 at 857 Broadway, later moving to Union Square and subsequently to 320 Fifth Avenue. At the turn of the twentieth century he created jewelry in the art nouveau style and exhibited several examples set with Cyprian glass fragments at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exhibition in Saint Louis. His beautiful handmade jewelry is distinctive for its use of colorful gemstones and enameling. He also designed silver, some of which was made by Lebkuecher and Company of Newark. He ...