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Lot Essay
THE PROVENANCE
The title of Viscount Walden is the second subsidiary title of the Marquesses of Tweeddale but it appears only ever to have been used for a short period, between 1862 and 1876, and the title Viscountess for a very short period indeed. The second son of the 8th Marquess of Tweeddale used that courtesy title after the death of his elder brother, who had used the more usual title of Earl of Gifford. Lord Walden married twice. His first wife, Helena Kielmansegge, daughter of the Hanoverian Minister in London, was married in 1857 and died in 1871. He married his second wife, Julia Stewart-Mackenzie, in 1873 and when his father died in 1876 he became Marquess. The owner of this table is far more likely to have been his second wife and the label would have been applied in the period 1873-76.
THE ICONOGRAPHY
Conceived in the George II 'Roman' manner, the tray's reed-moulded balustrade is supported by 'vase' pedestals alternating with medallions of reed-moulded and open-fretted libation-paterae. The central handles sit above projecting tablets in the table frieze, which is scalloped in triumphal-arches. Its truss-scrolled columnar legs are wrapped by palm-leaves and terminate in Ionic volutes. Such 'vase' balustrades were popularised by the Book of Architecture, 1728, issued by the Rome-trained architect James Gibbs, while the feature of 'tablets and medallions' reflects fashionable 'Roman' interior decoration introduced in the mid-18th century.
The East India trade to China had introduced lacquer versions of these tea-tray tables, which generally served in window-piers of parlours or fashionable bedroom apartments for the tea-service display. In addition to the lacquered and fretted imports, these tables were also decorated with japanning in imitation of lacquer such as that featured in the 1727 parlour view of the Grantham house of the antiquarian William Stukeley (d.1766) (F.Scoons, 'Dr.William Stukeley's House at Grantham', The Georgian Group Journal, vol. IX, 1999, pp. 158-165).
An exaggeratedly serpentine tripod tea-table, with the same patterned gallery, in the possession of the author, was illustrated in R. Edwards and P. Macquoid, The Dictionary of English Furniture, London, rev. ed., 1954, vol. III, p. 206, fig. 12. A serpentine tray of this form, although with fewer balusters, is illustrated in M. Jourdain and F. Rose, English Furniture: The Georgian Period 1750-1830, London, 1952, p. 191. fig. 157.
The title of Viscount Walden is the second subsidiary title of the Marquesses of Tweeddale but it appears only ever to have been used for a short period, between 1862 and 1876, and the title Viscountess for a very short period indeed. The second son of the 8th Marquess of Tweeddale used that courtesy title after the death of his elder brother, who had used the more usual title of Earl of Gifford. Lord Walden married twice. His first wife, Helena Kielmansegge, daughter of the Hanoverian Minister in London, was married in 1857 and died in 1871. He married his second wife, Julia Stewart-Mackenzie, in 1873 and when his father died in 1876 he became Marquess. The owner of this table is far more likely to have been his second wife and the label would have been applied in the period 1873-76.
THE ICONOGRAPHY
Conceived in the George II 'Roman' manner, the tray's reed-moulded balustrade is supported by 'vase' pedestals alternating with medallions of reed-moulded and open-fretted libation-paterae. The central handles sit above projecting tablets in the table frieze, which is scalloped in triumphal-arches. Its truss-scrolled columnar legs are wrapped by palm-leaves and terminate in Ionic volutes. Such 'vase' balustrades were popularised by the Book of Architecture, 1728, issued by the Rome-trained architect James Gibbs, while the feature of 'tablets and medallions' reflects fashionable 'Roman' interior decoration introduced in the mid-18th century.
The East India trade to China had introduced lacquer versions of these tea-tray tables, which generally served in window-piers of parlours or fashionable bedroom apartments for the tea-service display. In addition to the lacquered and fretted imports, these tables were also decorated with japanning in imitation of lacquer such as that featured in the 1727 parlour view of the Grantham house of the antiquarian William Stukeley (d.1766) (F.Scoons, 'Dr.William Stukeley's House at Grantham', The Georgian Group Journal, vol. IX, 1999, pp. 158-165).
An exaggeratedly serpentine tripod tea-table, with the same patterned gallery, in the possession of the author, was illustrated in R. Edwards and P. Macquoid, The Dictionary of English Furniture, London, rev. ed., 1954, vol. III, p. 206, fig. 12. A serpentine tray of this form, although with fewer balusters, is illustrated in M. Jourdain and F. Rose, English Furniture: The Georgian Period 1750-1830, London, 1952, p. 191. fig. 157.