CIRCA 1835, PROBABLY ASHFORD, DERBYSHIRE OR ASHBURTON, DEVON

This 'patriotic' specimen marble table - originally from a set of three at Fasque - celebrates indigenous British marbles and may have been made in the marble works of either Ashford, Derbyshire or Ashburton, Devon. The Ashford Black Marble Works and Old Royal Museum, Matlock were managed by John Mawe (d.1829) and, subsequently William Adam (d.1873) under the patronage of the Derbyshire mine-owner William Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire (d.1858), who had added to his remarkable mineral collection at Chatsworth, Derbyshire during the 1820s (J.M. Tomlinson, Derbyshire Black Marble, 1996).