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Lot Essay
These magnificent marble slabs with bowed front and indented 'columnar' rounded columns, are richly mosaiced with a whorled floral design in varied-coloured marbles in lozenged compartments framed by golden sienna marble and issuing from an oval medallion of alabstro fiorito. They were likely to have been manufactured in the same workshops as a pair of closely related table tops that were acquired during his six year grand tour following his marriage in 1771 by the connoisseur Patrick Home (d.1808) of Wedderburn Castle and Paxton House, Scotland. They were probably acquired by the Homes during their first year in Italy during which they made a dramatic ascent of Vesuvius (S. Pryke, 'Paxton House - II', Country Life, 6 May 1993, p.65, fig.7 ). Another of their purchases was a rectangular slab with squares of coloured marbles inlaid in black marble, see F. Bamford, A Dictionary of Edinburg Furniture Makers, 1660-1840, Furniture History Society, 1983, pl. 55A. This most probably acquired in the same 1771 group of purchases was later placed on a base by William Trotter in 1814. This in turn relates to one reputed to have belonged to the celebrated actor David Garrick (acquired by the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1953); and another purchased in 1777 and described as 'un table de marbre marquetee' when acquired by M. Jacques Joseph de Boussairolles (Victoria & Archives)/. Of interesting note is a pair of similarly conceived table tops, although of a slightly later date, displaying a very similar radial pattern which were also acquired by George Home and which rested on bases again commissioned from William Trotter, the Edinburgh cabinet-maker, sold, Property of a Lady, Christie's Edinburgh, 29 April 1992, lot 449, (£101,200).
The interesting numbering on one of the tops presumably corresponds to a key, now lost, naming the various specimens. Although rather naïve in the drawing of these numbers they are thought to be original. Similar numbering, again in a slightly loose hand, was evident on a table believed to have been acquired by Edward, Viscount Lascelles (d.1814) in the Grand Tour, for Harewood House, Yorkshire and subsequently sold, The Humphrey Whitbread Collection, Christie's London, 5 April 2001, lot 412.
The interesting numbering on one of the tops presumably corresponds to a key, now lost, naming the various specimens. Although rather naïve in the drawing of these numbers they are thought to be original. Similar numbering, again in a slightly loose hand, was evident on a table believed to have been acquired by Edward, Viscount Lascelles (d.1814) in the Grand Tour, for Harewood House, Yorkshire and subsequently sold, The Humphrey Whitbread Collection, Christie's London, 5 April 2001, lot 412.