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Lot Essay
THE DESIGN
This inlaid golden table, which would have been designed to accompany the mirror of a saloon/drawing-room window-pier, reflects the George III Roman fashion for interior decoration that was promoted by the publications of the Rome-trained court architects Robert Adam (d. 1792) and Sir William Chambers (d. 1796). The table was intended to harmonize with the 1770s fashion for ceilings with painted tablets and medallions inset in Roman stucco, so its elliptic-medallioned top is elegantly flowered in mosaiced compartments to evoke the concept of lyric poetry's triumph. Here, Apollo's beribboned laurels wreath a flowered and shell-scalloped libation-patera that is intended to recall the antique ceiling of the sun-deity Apollo's temple as published in R. Wood's Ruins of Palmyra, 1754. It is also wreathed, like a baldachino lambrequin, with the deity's sunflowers in tablets and medallions that are looped by a fretted ribbon; while fronds of Roman acanthus compartmentalize the table surface. This foliate ornament is echoed in the table-frieze where laurel-festooned palms issue from the legs' urn-capped and herm-tapered pilasters and frame tablet compartments with striated silken figured veneer. Large laurel-festooned palm-leaves also serve, like lambrequin drapery, to embellish the legs.
Its rich scrolls or rainceaux of Roman acanthus reflects in particular the 'antique' or Roman fashion that had been popularized for execution in wood-inlay, after the French manner, by a pattern-book issued in 1779 by the celebrated St. Martin's Lane Upholder, Thomas Chippendale Junior (d. 1822). Entitled, Sketches of Ornament, it featured foliate patterns incorporating palm-flowered and laurel-festooned sacred urns to evoke lyric poetry and sacrifices at Love's altar (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. II, figs. 29 & 30). It illustrates the type of ornament introduced in the early 1770s by the Chippendale firm in their designs for a bed for the state apartment which Robert Adam had decorated at Harewood House, Yorkshire, (ibid., figs. 50-52).
THE ATTRIBUTION TO MAYHEW AND INCE
This table, like the commode (lot 100), can by attributed to John Mayhew and William Ince (d. 1804), authors of The Universal System of Household Furniture, 1762 and leading competitors of the Chippendale firm. In particular this Golden Square firm introduced related sunflowered medallions on the pier-commode-table that they supplied in the 1780s for Broadlands, Hampshire (L. Wood, Catalogue of Commodes, London, 1994, p. 214, figs. 202-204). The draping of husk swags over paterae, in this case at the top of the legs, is a theme that is often repeated on Mayhew and Ince's work, sometimes using garlands of flowers or laurel (see for example the top of the commode supplied circa 1773 for Archibald Douglas, later 1st Baron Douglas and now in the Lady Lever Art Gallery; ibid, cat. 22, p. 195). Another characteristic of the firm is the skilled use of engraving in the marquetry, again clearly seen on this table. A further theme of the firm is the use of old fashioned types and forms; the concept of a chest on a separate stand dates from the 1750s (for example lots 104-106 from the Samuel Messer Collection, sold Christie's, London, 5 December 1991).
A pair of related pier tables was sold from the Estate of Doris Merrill Magowan, Christie's, New York, 22 May 2002, lot 33.
This inlaid golden table, which would have been designed to accompany the mirror of a saloon/drawing-room window-pier, reflects the George III Roman fashion for interior decoration that was promoted by the publications of the Rome-trained court architects Robert Adam (d. 1792) and Sir William Chambers (d. 1796). The table was intended to harmonize with the 1770s fashion for ceilings with painted tablets and medallions inset in Roman stucco, so its elliptic-medallioned top is elegantly flowered in mosaiced compartments to evoke the concept of lyric poetry's triumph. Here, Apollo's beribboned laurels wreath a flowered and shell-scalloped libation-patera that is intended to recall the antique ceiling of the sun-deity Apollo's temple as published in R. Wood's Ruins of Palmyra, 1754. It is also wreathed, like a baldachino lambrequin, with the deity's sunflowers in tablets and medallions that are looped by a fretted ribbon; while fronds of Roman acanthus compartmentalize the table surface. This foliate ornament is echoed in the table-frieze where laurel-festooned palms issue from the legs' urn-capped and herm-tapered pilasters and frame tablet compartments with striated silken figured veneer. Large laurel-festooned palm-leaves also serve, like lambrequin drapery, to embellish the legs.
Its rich scrolls or rainceaux of Roman acanthus reflects in particular the 'antique' or Roman fashion that had been popularized for execution in wood-inlay, after the French manner, by a pattern-book issued in 1779 by the celebrated St. Martin's Lane Upholder, Thomas Chippendale Junior (d. 1822). Entitled, Sketches of Ornament, it featured foliate patterns incorporating palm-flowered and laurel-festooned sacred urns to evoke lyric poetry and sacrifices at Love's altar (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. II, figs. 29 & 30). It illustrates the type of ornament introduced in the early 1770s by the Chippendale firm in their designs for a bed for the state apartment which Robert Adam had decorated at Harewood House, Yorkshire, (ibid., figs. 50-52).
THE ATTRIBUTION TO MAYHEW AND INCE
This table, like the commode (lot 100), can by attributed to John Mayhew and William Ince (d. 1804), authors of The Universal System of Household Furniture, 1762 and leading competitors of the Chippendale firm. In particular this Golden Square firm introduced related sunflowered medallions on the pier-commode-table that they supplied in the 1780s for Broadlands, Hampshire (L. Wood, Catalogue of Commodes, London, 1994, p. 214, figs. 202-204). The draping of husk swags over paterae, in this case at the top of the legs, is a theme that is often repeated on Mayhew and Ince's work, sometimes using garlands of flowers or laurel (see for example the top of the commode supplied circa 1773 for Archibald Douglas, later 1st Baron Douglas and now in the Lady Lever Art Gallery; ibid, cat. 22, p. 195). Another characteristic of the firm is the skilled use of engraving in the marquetry, again clearly seen on this table. A further theme of the firm is the use of old fashioned types and forms; the concept of a chest on a separate stand dates from the 1750s (for example lots 104-106 from the Samuel Messer Collection, sold Christie's, London, 5 December 1991).
A pair of related pier tables was sold from the Estate of Doris Merrill Magowan, Christie's, New York, 22 May 2002, lot 33.