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Lot Essay
Dumbwaiters were a form of dining room furniture which could hold all manner of liquor and drinking vessels, allowing guests to help themselves when servants had withdrawn, particularly at the end of a meal. A further advantage of such furniture was articulated by a Miss Mary Hamilton, whose diary entry of 1784 read: ‘we had dumb waiters so our conversation was not under any restraint by ye Servants being in ye room’ (R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, 1954, vol. II, p. 227).
This highly unusual example sits on well-articulated eagle legs of a broken cabriole form whose talons grasp rectangular blocks. A pole screen also from the Percival Griffiths collection and illustrated in Symonds’s English Furniture From Charles II to George II (fig. 201) shares this distinctive leg design. The dumbwaiter’s stem features star-shaped pouncing, a characteristic often found on Irish furniture such as on the aprons of tables. This, in combination with its unique form, may suggest an Irish origin. Symonds also speculates as much.
PERCIVAL GRIFFITHS
The collection formed by Percival D. Griffiths, F.S.A (d. 1938), under the wise counsel of R. W. Symonds is considered to be the greatest collection of English furniture formed in the last century. Assembled in over the course of thirty years, the process of refinement resulted in what Symonds rightly calls ‘an assemblage of the most perfect pieces of walnut and mahogany dating from the reigns of Queen Anne, George I and George II’ (R. W. Symonds, 'Percival Griffiths, F.S.A.: A Memoir on a Great Collector of English Furniture', The Antique Collector, November-December 1943, pp. 163-169). Griffiths ushered in a new appreciation for skilled craftsmanship and design and original patinated surfaces. Even at the time of Symond’s memoir, Griffiths provenance became the benchmark of excellence for collectors which continues to this day.
The interiors of Griffiths' home at Sandridgebury are happily recalled in 'Sandridgebury: The Country Residence of Percival D. Griffiths', published by Symonds in Antiques, March 1931, pp. 193-196. It was Griffiths' collection that provided the content for Symonds' seminal work English Furniture from Charles II to George II, 1929 in which the dumbwaiter is illustrated.
This highly unusual example sits on well-articulated eagle legs of a broken cabriole form whose talons grasp rectangular blocks. A pole screen also from the Percival Griffiths collection and illustrated in Symonds’s English Furniture From Charles II to George II (fig. 201) shares this distinctive leg design. The dumbwaiter’s stem features star-shaped pouncing, a characteristic often found on Irish furniture such as on the aprons of tables. This, in combination with its unique form, may suggest an Irish origin. Symonds also speculates as much.
PERCIVAL GRIFFITHS
The collection formed by Percival D. Griffiths, F.S.A (d. 1938), under the wise counsel of R. W. Symonds is considered to be the greatest collection of English furniture formed in the last century. Assembled in over the course of thirty years, the process of refinement resulted in what Symonds rightly calls ‘an assemblage of the most perfect pieces of walnut and mahogany dating from the reigns of Queen Anne, George I and George II’ (R. W. Symonds, 'Percival Griffiths, F.S.A.: A Memoir on a Great Collector of English Furniture', The Antique Collector, November-December 1943, pp. 163-169). Griffiths ushered in a new appreciation for skilled craftsmanship and design and original patinated surfaces. Even at the time of Symond’s memoir, Griffiths provenance became the benchmark of excellence for collectors which continues to this day.
The interiors of Griffiths' home at Sandridgebury are happily recalled in 'Sandridgebury: The Country Residence of Percival D. Griffiths', published by Symonds in Antiques, March 1931, pp. 193-196. It was Griffiths' collection that provided the content for Symonds' seminal work English Furniture from Charles II to George II, 1929 in which the dumbwaiter is illustrated.