ATTRIBUTED TO THOMAS CHIPPENDALE, CIRCA 1770-75

The pedestals compare closely in their form, quality of timber and finely rendered carved details to the pair supplied by celebrated cabinet-maker Thomas Chippendale and his son for Ninian Home (d.1795) at Paxton House in Scotland (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. II, pp. 193-94, figs. 351 and 353). The Chippendale commission for Paxton was extensive and extended over a long period of time due to Home's responsibilities as Lieutenant Governor of Grenada and his intermittant stays at Paxton. While the dining-room furniture does not appear on a surviving 1774 Chippendale and Haig invoice, a clothes press supplied for the best bedroom at Paxton is invoiced on 7 June and displays the same flowerhead medallions and fluted frieze with fine leaf-tip corners that appear on the Paxton pedestals and the offered pair (op. cit, vol. II, p. 138, fig. 248). A further comparable pair are in the collection at Cannon Hall, Yorkshire (J. F. Hayward, 'Pedestals and Vases for the Dining Room, The Connoisseur, p. 158, fig. 4). John Spencer's correspondence with his architect, Carr of York, state that he visited Chippendale along with several other fashionable cabinet-makers, and an existing wine-cooler at Cannon Hall compares to another documented example by the firm. Certainly, the lustrous veneers and finely carved details on the present pair of pedestals strongly support an attribution to Chippendale's workshop.