Lot Essay
This table is likely to have formed part of the fine collection of French furniture introduced to Floors Castle, Scotland, following the marriage in 1903 of Henry Innes-Ker, 8th Duke of Roxburghe (d.1932) to Mary Goelet. Much of the collection had furnished her father Ogden Goelet's mansion at Long Island, New York.
This table carpet is related to a Savonnerie carpet of the mid-17th Century in the James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor (P. Verlet, The Savonnerie; Its History, The Waddesdon Collection, Greenwich, 1966, vol.II, p.493, cat.276). Both examples are hung with simulated campanes (tassels in bell-shape) along the inner border, indicating that the carpets would have lain on a table about the size of the inner field.
Seventeenth Century painters often depict Turkey carpets covering tables. A contemporary text describes its usage:
Il vous faut...en un autre endroit, une grande table longue, avec un tapis d'une grosse mocquette pour contrefaire le tapis de Turquie..Il ne faut qu'une table de trois planches sur un pied sans aucune fasçon, la mettre contre le mur, et le tapis par-devant jusqu'a terre; ainsi, on ne voit pas le table.
This lot would probably also have covered a table the size of the inner field with the borders hanging over the edge. Although the motif is closely related to the above mentioned examples, both the motifs and the outer slip are more indicative of a Brussels manufactory.
This table carpet is related to a Savonnerie carpet of the mid-17th Century in the James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor (P. Verlet, The Savonnerie; Its History, The Waddesdon Collection, Greenwich, 1966, vol.II, p.493, cat.276). Both examples are hung with simulated campanes (tassels in bell-shape) along the inner border, indicating that the carpets would have lain on a table about the size of the inner field.
Seventeenth Century painters often depict Turkey carpets covering tables. A contemporary text describes its usage:
Il vous faut...en un autre endroit, une grande table longue, avec un tapis d'une grosse mocquette pour contrefaire le tapis de Turquie..Il ne faut qu'une table de trois planches sur un pied sans aucune fasçon, la mettre contre le mur, et le tapis par-devant jusqu'a terre; ainsi, on ne voit pas le table.
This lot would probably also have covered a table the size of the inner field with the borders hanging over the edge. Although the motif is closely related to the above mentioned examples, both the motifs and the outer slip are more indicative of a Brussels manufactory.