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Lot Essay
GLEMHAM HALL
Glemham Hall in East Suffolk was a late 16th Century house, probably built by Sir Henry Glemham. Circa 1708 it was bought by Dudley North, the son of a City of London magnate. Early photographs show some magnificent late 17th Century furniture, including a state bed, which Dudley North is thought to have brought to Glemham from his father's house in London, which is recorded as being grandly furnished (H. Avray Tipping, English Homes, Period IV, vol. I, p. 408). Dudley North extensively altered Glemham in 1700-25 but the exact date of the work is not clear. Very good surviving furniture of circa 1710-15, such as the suite of gesso seat-furniture and a gesso side table in the Victoria and Albert Museum suggests that some of the work was complete by that date in order for it to be furnished (illustrated ibid., p. 410). Of course these eagle console tables confuse the issue because they can date from no earlier than circa 1727. A recent suggestion that the suite of gesso seat-furniture was originally from Sezincote in Gloucestershire, another North house, and only came to Glemham in the 19th or early 20th century, seems implausible, if only because the house at Sezincote at this date does not seem grand enough for such a magnificent suite (The suggestion was made in a footnote to lot 6 in Sotheby's London sale, 10 July 1998).
The later furniture at Glemham Hall was of the same high standard as these tables. It included the suite of at least nine early George III mahogany library armchairs covered with needlework of birds worked by a member of the North family. The set was sold at Christie's in 1945 and the most recent sale of a pair was in these Rooms, 16 November 1995, lot 50. The sofa in the foregound of the Country Life photograph illustrated here is one of a pair now in the Victoria and Albert Museum and The National Gallery of Victoria (W.29.247, D. Fitzgerald, Georgian Furniture, 1967, pl. 2).
It is not known whether Mrs. Hervey-Bathurst, who sold these tables in 1960, had inherited them or bought them. In the same sale she sold a mirror that was also from Glemham which may suggest she inherited them.
THE TABLES
These marble-slabbed side tables, which would have been entitled 'Roman tables' in early 18th Century pattern books, were designed in the antique manner as sideboard-tables for a stone banqueting hall or saloon, The ornament of the frame is intended to recall ancient poetry such as Ovid's Metamorphoses or Loves of the Gods, and as such the spread eagle would recall its role in bearing away the youthful Ganymede to serve as Jupiter's cup-bearer at the banquet of the Gods. Appropriately for a buffet-table intended to support silver water-fountains, each frame is wreathed by a festive wave-scrolled ribbon guilloche, named after Vitruvius, author of the Roman architectural treatise.
The original design of the early Georgian eagle-supported pier-table is associated with Lord Burlington's proteg, the artist architect William Kent (d.1748), who was granted the title 'Master Carpenter' of King George I's Board of Works. In 1725, Kent featured Roman eagles in his illustrations for Alexander Pope's translation of Homer's epic poem The Odyssey, recounting the history of Rome's foundation after the Trojan Wars. Kent used scenes from The Odyssey in his Roman-mosaiced ceiling for King George I's apartment or gallery at Kensington Palace.
Glemham Hall in East Suffolk was a late 16th Century house, probably built by Sir Henry Glemham. Circa 1708 it was bought by Dudley North, the son of a City of London magnate. Early photographs show some magnificent late 17th Century furniture, including a state bed, which Dudley North is thought to have brought to Glemham from his father's house in London, which is recorded as being grandly furnished (H. Avray Tipping, English Homes, Period IV, vol. I, p. 408). Dudley North extensively altered Glemham in 1700-25 but the exact date of the work is not clear. Very good surviving furniture of circa 1710-15, such as the suite of gesso seat-furniture and a gesso side table in the Victoria and Albert Museum suggests that some of the work was complete by that date in order for it to be furnished (illustrated ibid., p. 410). Of course these eagle console tables confuse the issue because they can date from no earlier than circa 1727. A recent suggestion that the suite of gesso seat-furniture was originally from Sezincote in Gloucestershire, another North house, and only came to Glemham in the 19th or early 20th century, seems implausible, if only because the house at Sezincote at this date does not seem grand enough for such a magnificent suite (The suggestion was made in a footnote to lot 6 in Sotheby's London sale, 10 July 1998).
The later furniture at Glemham Hall was of the same high standard as these tables. It included the suite of at least nine early George III mahogany library armchairs covered with needlework of birds worked by a member of the North family. The set was sold at Christie's in 1945 and the most recent sale of a pair was in these Rooms, 16 November 1995, lot 50. The sofa in the foregound of the Country Life photograph illustrated here is one of a pair now in the Victoria and Albert Museum and The National Gallery of Victoria (W.29.247, D. Fitzgerald, Georgian Furniture, 1967, pl. 2).
It is not known whether Mrs. Hervey-Bathurst, who sold these tables in 1960, had inherited them or bought them. In the same sale she sold a mirror that was also from Glemham which may suggest she inherited them.
THE TABLES
These marble-slabbed side tables, which would have been entitled 'Roman tables' in early 18th Century pattern books, were designed in the antique manner as sideboard-tables for a stone banqueting hall or saloon, The ornament of the frame is intended to recall ancient poetry such as Ovid's Metamorphoses or Loves of the Gods, and as such the spread eagle would recall its role in bearing away the youthful Ganymede to serve as Jupiter's cup-bearer at the banquet of the Gods. Appropriately for a buffet-table intended to support silver water-fountains, each frame is wreathed by a festive wave-scrolled ribbon guilloche, named after Vitruvius, author of the Roman architectural treatise.
The original design of the early Georgian eagle-supported pier-table is associated with Lord Burlington's proteg, the artist architect William Kent (d.1748), who was granted the title 'Master Carpenter' of King George I's Board of Works. In 1725, Kent featured Roman eagles in his illustrations for Alexander Pope's translation of Homer's epic poem The Odyssey, recounting the history of Rome's foundation after the Trojan Wars. Kent used scenes from The Odyssey in his Roman-mosaiced ceiling for King George I's apartment or gallery at Kensington Palace.