Lot Essay
This table is unusual in many respects. It originally had a wooden top (there are glue marks for the blocking to fix on a top on the inside of the frieze) and in its general form, with deep shaped apron, hipped and rectangular panelled legs and square paw feet, it relates to early 18th Century gilt-gesso tables, such as those supplied to Malahide Castle, Co. Dublin, circa 1740 (see Irish Furniture, p. 97, fig. 126). However, other features such as the large leaves at the top of the legs belong to slightly later in the 18th Century and can be seen on the Trade Card of William Wilkinson of Chequer Lane, Dublin, presumably the same man as William Wilkinson, carver and gilder, recorded in Dublin Directories in Chequer Lane, 1761-1774 (Irish Furniture, endpapers). The trellised ground is also an Irish feature.