ATTRIBUTED TO PAUL SAUNDERS, CIRCA 1765

This exuberantly carved concertina-action card table is attributed to the work of Paul Saunders of Soho Square, London, one of the preeminent cabinet-makers of the 1750s and 60s, who was supplying furniture to Holkham Hall (Norfolk), Woburn Abbey (Bedfordshire) and Petworth House (West Sussex). The leg pattern corresponds closely to that on a suite of seat furniture supplied in 1756 for the Earl of Leicester at Holkham Hall, Norfolk by the Soho firm of Messrs Paul Saunders and George Smith Bradshaw and described by them as being 'richly carved to match a pattern' (see R. Edwards, The Shorter Dictionary of English Furniture, London, 1964, p.144, fig. 108; and J.Cornforth, 'French Style, English Mood', Country Life, 1 October 1992, p.80).