THE TOPS CIRCA 1790, ALMOST CERTAINLY BY DOMINIC BARTOLI, ONE BASE LATE 18TH CENTURY AND ADAPTED, THE OTHER 19TH CENTURY

These newly discovered tables display Etruscan-designed scagliola tops that can be attributed to the celebrated specialist Dominic Bartoli, who worked first almost exclusively under the direction of architect Robert Adam, and thereafter for James Wyatt. Both Adam and Wyatt were accomplished furniture designers, as was typical of many eighteenth century English architects, and both embraced the Etruscan style having received their training in Rome. Adam designed a pair of tables with similar tops for the Duke of Northumberland at Northumberland House (the tables now at Syon House) as well as for Sir Rowland Winn at Nostell Priory (see E. Harris, The Genius of Robert Adam, London, 2001, p. 101, fig. 150 and p. 206, fig. 303). As to the latter, Bartoli and his then partner John Richter, supplied 'two Statuary Tables inlaid of Scagliola According Messrs Adam's Desaing for the Salon at Nostell at 75 guineas each' in 1777 (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, 1978, vol. I, p. 173). Bartoli's 1785 documented chimneypiece in the Third George Room at Burghley House is inlaid with a closely comparable urn.
The Irish inlayer Pietro Bossi also specialized in this craft and famously produced a small but distinctive group of table tops and chimneypieces incorporating classical medallions. Most notable among these is the chimneypiece at Charlemont House, Dublin (C. O'Neill, 'In Search of Bossi', Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies, Irish Georgian Society, 1998, vol. I). However, the scholar Donald Cameron suggests that much of the work attributed to Bossi can be ascribed to Bartoli, who came to Ireland in 1794 initially to work with Wyatt at Castle Coole ('Scagliola Inlay work: the problems of attribution', Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies, Irish Georgian Society, 2004, vol. VII). The tables may date from this latter period in Bartoli's career. In addition to Etruscan-themed chimneypieces and tables, the double-helix pattern band appears on tables at The National Museum of Ireland, and Malahide Castle (formerly at Russborough) and derives from Bartoli's earlier work with Adam indicating these were probably his own designs (D. Cameron, op. cit., figs. 6, 7). Bartoli himself designed a pair of larger table tops, which he sold at Christie's in 1796 described as 'A beautiful Scaliola slab, exquisitely inlaid with figures from the antique, designed and executed by that eminent artist Dominick Bartoli, size 4 foot 8 by 2 foot 1' and 'A ditto immediately to correspond, by Ditto'. The table acquired by Charles Agar, Archbishop of Dublin (d. 1809) features a top that compares to the Northumberland examples but here the oak leaf border has been adapted to echo the table's frieze (D. Cameron, pl. 10). Intriguingly, the table frame is virtually identical to the offered pair.
Aside from the Agar table, this pattern frame exists on a pair of tables with blue-john tops, sold Christie's New York, 22 April 1995, lot 374; and a larger table with scagliola top originally purchased by Moss Harris for 1st Lord Leverhulme's collection and sold Anderson Galleries, New York, 11 February 1926, lot 359 (later sold Sotheby's New York, 24 January 1987, lot 170).
The last record of Bartoli's work is a receipt dated 11 March 1805 for a pair of table tops for Carlton House, the Prince Regent's palace in London and Bartoli's letter in the Royal Archives begging for payment (RA Geo/25189). Described as 'two scagliola tables inlaid with foliage and ornament' (RA Geo 2519a), it is tempting to consider that the present tops, as finely executed as they are, could feasibly be the same.