CIRCA 1810, ATTRIBUTED TO GILLOWS

A pair of metamorphic sofa games tables of this pattern, with 'Apollo' Grecian-lyre trestles and sunburst handles, was commissioned by Thomas Anson, 1st Viscount Anson (1767-1818) for the library at Shugborough, Staffordshire, in the first decade of the 19th century, when alterations were being carried out the by the architect Samuel Wyatt (d. 1807). The tables are attributed to the firm of Gillow of London and Lancaster, who had a close working relationship with the Wyatt dynasty of architects. While one remains at Shugborough, there remains a tantalising possibility that the present table is the one sold from the house in 1842 (J. Martin Robinson, Shugborough, London, 1989, p. 77 and MS copy of sale catalogue of the Contents of Shugborough, 1842, William Salt Library, Stafford).

The present lots also relates to an 1818 pattern for a 'spindle end' table supplied to Ferguson & Co. and illustrated in Gillows' Estimate Sketch Books (G. Wills, Craftsmen and Cabinet-Makers of Classic English Furniture, Edinburgh, 1974, p. 118, fig. 109).

A virtually identical table - and another candidate for the Shugborough table - was sold from the collection of the late Mrs. Susan Remington-Hobbs, daughter of Lady Baillie of Lowndes House and Leeds Castle, Christie's London, 2 May 2002, lot 32 (£17,925). Another pair of tables formerly in the collection of Lady Baillie was sold Sotheby's London, 15 November 1996, lot 83.