.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This folding snap-top tea or work-table has a reeded baluster and serpentine 'claw' base. The latter type featured on a table pattern in Thomas Malton's Compleat Treatise on Perspective, 1775, pl. IV, fig. 28. The ribbon-banded and mosaic-parquetried octagon top evokes the sun and poetry deity Apollo's temple illustrated in Robert Wood's Ruins of the Temple of the Sun at Palmyra, 1757. In place of the temple ceiling's flowered compartments, the table displays a black and golden-chequered 'Apollo' sunburst, such as Thomas Chippendale introduced on the Earl of Pembroke's bookcases, now at Wilton (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. II, fig. 66).
Chippendale also supplied a hexagonal top table in 1764 to Sir Lawrence Dundas for 19 Arlington Street (ibid., fig. 470). A number of tables of that, or a closely related, pattern are known and are attributed confidently to Chippendale. The Arlington Street table has a radially-veneered top, as on the present lot. Others of the group also have sun or medallion-inlaid centres. One of the finest is a hexagonal satinwood table sold from the collection of the late N.M.L. Watson, Esq., in these Rooms, 21 November 1985, lot 52, which was also inlaid with a sunburst.
Chippendale also supplied a hexagonal top table in 1764 to Sir Lawrence Dundas for 19 Arlington Street (ibid., fig. 470). A number of tables of that, or a closely related, pattern are known and are attributed confidently to Chippendale. The Arlington Street table has a radially-veneered top, as on the present lot. Others of the group also have sun or medallion-inlaid centres. One of the finest is a hexagonal satinwood table sold from the collection of the late N.M.L. Watson, Esq., in these Rooms, 21 November 1985, lot 52, which was also inlaid with a sunburst.