BY JOHNSTON, JUPE & CO., CIRCA 1835-1840

Details

A WILLIAM IV MAHOGANY CIRCULAR EXTENDING DINING TABLE
BY JOHNSTON, JUPE & CO., CIRCA 1835-1840
The center stamped JOHNSTONE JUPE & CO NEW BOND ST. LONDON, the metalwork stamped JUPE'S PATENT, with two sets of leaves, extending the table to two sizes; together with an original mahogany leaf case
60 ½ in. (153.5 cm.) diam. closed, 73 ¾ in. (189.5 cm.) diameter with small leaves, 88 ½ in. (228 cm.) diameter when fully extended with large leaves

Provenance

Anonymous sale; Christie's, South Kensington, 6 July 1988, lot 535.

Special notice

Please note lots marked with a square will be moved to Christie’s Fine Art Storage Services (CFASS in Red Hook, Brooklyn) on the last day of the sale. Lots are not available for collection at Christie’s Fine Art Storage Services until after the third business day following the sale. All lots will be stored free of charge for 30 days from the auction date at Christie’s Rockefeller Center or Christie’s Fine Art Storage Services (CFASS in Red Hook, Brooklyn). Operation hours for collection from either location are from 9.30 am to 5.00 pm, Monday-Friday. After 30 days from the auction date property may be moved at Christie’s discretion. Please contact Post-Sale Services to confirm the location of your property prior to collection. Lots may not be collected during the day of their move to Christie’s Fine Art Storage Services (CFASS in Red Hook, Brooklyn). Please consult the Lot Collection Notice for collection information.

Lot Essay

In March 1835, London upholsterer Robert Jupe patented a design for "an improved expanding table so constructed that the sections composing its surface may be caused to diverge from a common center and that the spaces caused thereby may be filled up by inserting leaves or filling pieces." The first examples of the table was were produced between 1835 and 1840 in partnership with John Johnstone and were stamped Johnstone, Jupe & Co., London. Several examples, as well as a detail of the mechanism, illustrate the remarkable consistence of their workshop and are reproduced in C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840, Leeds, 1996, pp. 283-285. By 1840, Robert Jupe had left the partnership to form his own firm from which point his name alone usually appears on the later, now eponymous, tables with his 'Jupe' mechanism.

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