Lot Essay
This games-table, finely veneered in ebony and burr-amboyna and complete with games pieces, comes by direct descent from the Victorian millionaire and textile manufacturer Sir Henry Isaac Butterfield and his American wife Mary Roosevelt Bourke. They started their married life in 1854 in France where Mary was a lady-in-waiting to Empress Eugénie, buying a home on the Place de l'Etoile in Paris and a villa in Cimiez, Nice. After Mary died prematurely in 1870 and their Paris home was struck by a shell during the Commune rising, some possessions where moved to Cliffe Castle which Sir Henry inherited in 1874 and remodelled as a showpiece of international art and French decoration. This games-table perfectly encapsulates the luxurious tastes of the Second Empire, and the link to the French imperial court is all the more fascinating considering that Maison Alphonse Giroux, the maker of this games-table, also supplied objets de luxe to Napoléon III and Empress Eugénie.