ATTRIBUTED TO THOMAS CHIPPENDALE

This elegant library table was commissioned by Henry, 2nd Duke of Newcastle (d.1794) for Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire, which was designed in the late 1760s and built by Stephen Wright (d. 1780). It has chamfered legs with moulded top and astragal-moulded frame such as feature on 1753 patterns for sideboard tables illustrated in Thomas Chippendale's The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, London, 1762 (pls. LVI and LVII). Its restrained elegance epitomises much of the fine mahogany furniture produced by Thomas Chippendale (d. 1779) some of which was fitted with this pattern of medallion handle-plate. This pattern with swagged handle appears as No. 1189 (priced at 2/3 or two shillings and three pence) in a Birmingham metal-workers pattern book (N. Goodison, 'The Victoria and Albert Museum's Collection of Metal-Work Pattern Books, Furniture History, 1975, fig. 25). In the 1760s and early 1770s, Chippendale supplied furniture with these handles for houses such as Nostell Priory and Aske Hall, Yorkshire, as well as Mersham-le-Hatch, Kent and Paxton House, Berwickshire (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. II, figs. 91, 94, 203, 208, 242, 454 and 455). The table's freize drawers are further enriched with tablet-frames of inlaid ribbon bands, such as bordered a table-top that Chippendale supplied in 1764 for Aske Hall (Gilbert, ibid, fig. 470).
This library table's locks were, however, provided by Edward Gascoigne of St. James's, London, whose locks were also fitted to Queen Charlotte's medal-case, supplied in 1762 by Messrs. Vile and Cobb (L. Wood, Catalogue of Commodes, London, 1994, pp. 184-185). Gascoigne's locks also feature on a magnificent mahogany commode, which Chippendale supplied for the St. James's Square mansion of Sir Rowland Winn of Nostell Priory (sold from the Samuel Messer Collection, in these Rooms, 5 December 1991, lot 130).