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Lot Essay
This table is designed in the Louis XVI Pompeian manner promoted in the 1780s by the architect Henry Holland (d. 1806), the Paris London marchand-mercier, Dominique Daguerre, and the London 'cabriolet chair-frame maker' François Hervé (d. 1796) under the patronage of George, Prince of Wales. Its altar-white marble rests on an elliptic frame that displays Apollo's sunflowered pattera in its hollowed and antique-tablet frieze, together with lozenged flowers evoking Rome's Temple of Venus. Its reed-enriched and antique fluted columnar legs have French-fashioned hollowed capitals. Its architecture corresponds to that of 'medaillion'-backed 'cabriole' chairs supplied by Hervé in 1782 to the 5th Duke of Devonshire, and described as having 'plain Mouldings Rails pannelled, front feet flu'd and Counter flu'd' (I. Hall, 'A Neoclassical Episode at Chatsworth', The Burlington Magazine, June 1980, pp. 405-409, figs. 39 & 40). In particular, the dropped tablet at the tops of the legs - which provides a stronger joint - is seen as a distinctive characteristic of Hervé's work.
Furniture of similar style, supplied by Hervé to John, 2nd Earl Spencer, was invoiced in 1791 as being made to 'the order of Messrs Holland and Daguerre' and related to some white marble-topped and Pompeian-columned furniture that was executed by Claude-Charles Saunier under the direction of Daguerre and supplied at the same time to Lord Spencer (P. Thornton and J. Hardy, 'The Spencer Furniture at Althorp - III', Apollo, October 1968, pp. 266-278, figs. 7, 8, 16 and 18).
Furniture of similar style, supplied by Hervé to John, 2nd Earl Spencer, was invoiced in 1791 as being made to 'the order of Messrs Holland and Daguerre' and related to some white marble-topped and Pompeian-columned furniture that was executed by Claude-Charles Saunier under the direction of Daguerre and supplied at the same time to Lord Spencer (P. Thornton and J. Hardy, 'The Spencer Furniture at Althorp - III', Apollo, October 1968, pp. 266-278, figs. 7, 8, 16 and 18).