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Lot Essay
Appropriate for the decoration of a drawing-room window pier, the table's golden top displays a poetic trophy wreathed by an Etruscan pearled ribbon-band. Flowers festoon beribboned laurels that wreath a sunflower. Intended to recall Apollo, the sun-god as leader of the Parnasian muses of artistic inspiration, the feathery flower derives from R. Wood's Ruins of the Temple of the Sun at Palmyra, published in 1753.
Much of the inlay closely relates to that of a pair of pier-tables supplied in the early 1780s to Richard Myddleton, Esq. for Chirk Castle, Denbighshire by Mayhew and Ince of Golden Square (see L.Wood, Catalogue of Commodes, 1993, pp. 220-221).
Its Roman-tripod frame, with flowered and antique-fluted frieze, has scrolled truss-supports of ribbon-bound 'fasces' reeds, embellished with festive lion-masks and terminating in acanthus-wrapped volutes. Closely related frames, supporting marble tops, feature on a pair of tables formerly in the collection of the Earls of Lonsdale at Lowther Castle, Cumberland (sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 27 June 1985, lot 146). A related table frame is also illustrated in H. Cescinsky, English Furniture from Gothic to Sheraton, 1937 (p.320).
Much of the inlay closely relates to that of a pair of pier-tables supplied in the early 1780s to Richard Myddleton, Esq. for Chirk Castle, Denbighshire by Mayhew and Ince of Golden Square (see L.Wood, Catalogue of Commodes, 1993, pp. 220-221).
Its Roman-tripod frame, with flowered and antique-fluted frieze, has scrolled truss-supports of ribbon-bound 'fasces' reeds, embellished with festive lion-masks and terminating in acanthus-wrapped volutes. Closely related frames, supporting marble tops, feature on a pair of tables formerly in the collection of the Earls of Lonsdale at Lowther Castle, Cumberland (sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 27 June 1985, lot 146). A related table frame is also illustrated in H. Cescinsky, English Furniture from Gothic to Sheraton, 1937 (p.320).