Lot Essay
This French style writing-table is embellished with poetic enrichments including the laurel-festooned 'herm' feet and Grecian ribbon-fret frieze tied with tablets displaying Apollo's sunflowered paterae. It is designed in the goût grec manner, introduced around 1760, and its ornament evolves from that on the celebrated desk supplied by Le Lorrain for Lalive de Jully in the mid-1750's.
The writing-table, attributed to the London firm of John Linnell, was almost certainly inspired by a French bureau à la grec purchased in Paris by Linnell's patron, the 6th Earl of Coventry, for Croome Court through the marchand-mercier Poirier in 1765. This French bureau plat which is virtually identical in design bears the stamp of Jacques Dubois (d.1763) but is attributed to his son, René (see S. Eriksen, Early Neo-classicism in France, 1974, figs. 85 and 100). A sketch by Linnell of a commode (H. Hayward and P. Kirkham, William and John Linnell, 1980, vol. II, p. 140, fig. 278) features the same Greek key frieze that appears on the Croome Court piece. Other furniture supplied by the Linnell workshop show the same French influence, such as the pair of library tables provided for Robert Child at Osterley Park, Middlesex, in circa 1768 (H. Hayward and P. Kirkham, op.cit., fig. 288).
A virtually identical writing-table from Temple Newsam is listed in the 1808 inventory in Lady Irwin's Dressing Room (Leeds Art Calendar, 1987, no. 99 and 100, p. 17 and 27) and was sold through the London dealers, Moss Harris, in the early part of this century. It appears in a photograph of the gallery published in An Abridged Introductory Catalogue of Antique Furniture and Works of Art, n.d., pp. 49 and 82.
The writing-table, attributed to the London firm of John Linnell, was almost certainly inspired by a French bureau à la grec purchased in Paris by Linnell's patron, the 6th Earl of Coventry, for Croome Court through the marchand-mercier Poirier in 1765. This French bureau plat which is virtually identical in design bears the stamp of Jacques Dubois (d.1763) but is attributed to his son, René (see S. Eriksen, Early Neo-classicism in France, 1974, figs. 85 and 100). A sketch by Linnell of a commode (H. Hayward and P. Kirkham, William and John Linnell, 1980, vol. II, p. 140, fig. 278) features the same Greek key frieze that appears on the Croome Court piece. Other furniture supplied by the Linnell workshop show the same French influence, such as the pair of library tables provided for Robert Child at Osterley Park, Middlesex, in circa 1768 (H. Hayward and P. Kirkham, op.cit., fig. 288).
A virtually identical writing-table from Temple Newsam is listed in the 1808 inventory in Lady Irwin's Dressing Room (Leeds Art Calendar, 1987, no. 99 and 100, p. 17 and 27) and was sold through the London dealers, Moss Harris, in the early part of this century. It appears in a photograph of the gallery published in An Abridged Introductory Catalogue of Antique Furniture and Works of Art, n.d., pp. 49 and 82.