CIRCA 1810

These andirons in the form of leaf-sheathed chimaerae are conceived in the antique style as introduced to London around 1800 by the connoisseur Thomas Hope (d. 1831) and popularised through the illustrations of his Duchess Street mansion entitled Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807. In the introduction to this guide, Hope states his intent 'to execute, in an accurate and a classic style, that prodigious variety of details and of embellishments,which under the various characters and denominations of imitated and of symbolic personages, of attributes and of insignia of gods and of men, of instruments and of trophies, of terms, caryatides, griffins, chimaeras, scenic masks, sacrificial implements, civil and military emblems &c. once gave to every piece of Grecian and Roman furniture so much grace, variety, movement, expression, and physiognomy; so much wherewithal to afford to the eye and the mind the most luxuriant and uncloying treat'. Plate XV in the book shows a table formed of three such figures.