.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The tables are designed in the French/antique or Pompeian fashion, with indented columnar corners, and with foliated and tapering pillar legs terminating in thyrsic cones and tied by arched stretchers. They correspond to 1793 window-pier and card-table patterns published by Thomas Sheraton, who recommended that their 'ornaments may be japanned on the frames and carved in the legs' (T. Sheraton, The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book, 1793, pls. 4 and 11 from the Appendix). Their India-flowered ribbon borders relate to 'penworker' patterns issued in Thomas Ackermann's Repository of Arts, vol. 10, December, 1820).
The principal subject of one tablet top depicts Apollo driving the sun-chariot and leading female figures personifying the hours. It derives from an engraving after a celebrated painting by Guido Reni. The companion table depicts winged figures personifying the hours and dancing between couched figures personifying dawn and night, in the manner of John Flaxman (d. 1826). On either side are festive Bacchic figures derived from Grecian vases in the possession of the connoisseur Thomas Hope and published in his Costume of the Ancients, 1812. These Bacchante are depicted: with a thyrsus; sounding the crotals; and dancing and bearing the rod of sesamum (ibid., pls. 180, 92, 93 and 91).
The execution of the penwork on these tables is of the highest quality. It is likely that it was carried out by a specialist penwork artist, such as Henzell Gouch whose name and the date 1815 appear on two sofa tables, one of which is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840, Leeds, 1996, pp. 31, 227, 228, figs. 406-408 and F. Collard, Regency Furniture, London, 1985, p. 319, pl. 40). A related penwork commode was sold from the estate of Mary Lee Fairbanks, Christie's, New York, 14 October 1989, lot 163. A penwork cabinet, decorated with scenes from the Iliad, after Flaxman, is illustrated in P. Broome, The Hyde Park Collection, 1965-1990, 1989, Hong Kong, pp. 312-313. A penwork chiffonier with a similar classical scene on the top, including one of the same figures after Hope that appears on the present lot, was offered anonymously, Christie's, New York, 16 April 1998, lot 87 (see also N. Riley, 'Neo-Classical Designs in Penwork', Furniture History, 2001, p. 55, figs. 15-17).
The principal subject of one tablet top depicts Apollo driving the sun-chariot and leading female figures personifying the hours. It derives from an engraving after a celebrated painting by Guido Reni. The companion table depicts winged figures personifying the hours and dancing between couched figures personifying dawn and night, in the manner of John Flaxman (d. 1826). On either side are festive Bacchic figures derived from Grecian vases in the possession of the connoisseur Thomas Hope and published in his Costume of the Ancients, 1812. These Bacchante are depicted: with a thyrsus; sounding the crotals; and dancing and bearing the rod of sesamum (ibid., pls. 180, 92, 93 and 91).
The execution of the penwork on these tables is of the highest quality. It is likely that it was carried out by a specialist penwork artist, such as Henzell Gouch whose name and the date 1815 appear on two sofa tables, one of which is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840, Leeds, 1996, pp. 31, 227, 228, figs. 406-408 and F. Collard, Regency Furniture, London, 1985, p. 319, pl. 40). A related penwork commode was sold from the estate of Mary Lee Fairbanks, Christie's, New York, 14 October 1989, lot 163. A penwork cabinet, decorated with scenes from the Iliad, after Flaxman, is illustrated in P. Broome, The Hyde Park Collection, 1965-1990, 1989, Hong Kong, pp. 312-313. A penwork chiffonier with a similar classical scene on the top, including one of the same figures after Hope that appears on the present lot, was offered anonymously, Christie's, New York, 16 April 1998, lot 87 (see also N. Riley, 'Neo-Classical Designs in Penwork', Furniture History, 2001, p. 55, figs. 15-17).