GEORGE BULLOCK, 1777-1818

George Bullock’s birthplace is unknown. His mother was likely an itinerant vendor of wax figures, and the young George and his brother William were also employed in this work. George Bullock first appears in the field of decorative arts in an 1804 document from Liverpool.  These were the years he was under the tutelage of William Roscoe, a poet and scholar of the Italian Renaissance. His ability to design and imagine Gothic or Classical furniture guaranteed him some celebrity and there followed a series of collaborations with the most important furniture manufactures of the time. In 1815, the British government commissioned him to design the interiors of New Longwood House, St. Helena, which was to house Napoleon in exile. From 1816 to 1819, he was employed by the great novelist, Walter Scott, to the design the innovative Abbotsford Castle in Scotland. Having been forgotten for many decades, Bullock is now celebrated as one of the most innovative designers and furniture makers of the English Regency period.

For more information on his work, you can consult the biography written by Clive Wainwright and updated by Martin Levy for the Furniture History Society: https://bifmo.furniturehistorysociety.org/entry/bullock-george-1777-1818

The portrait opposite, painted by Joseph Allen in 1808, shows Bullock with the bust he sculpted of Henry Blundell behind him. The work is kept at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.