Lot Essay
The silver dressing-table, richly embossed with flower-festooned Roman acanthus in the antique fashion of the court of Louis XIV, displays a poetic bas-relief medallion, celebrating Apollo's triumph in the Arts, and the cherub-guarded cypher of Frances Cranfield, Countess of Dorset (d. 1694). The Countess, daughter of Lionel, Earl of Middlesex and widow of Richard Sackville, 5th Earl of Dorset (d. 1677) commissioned the magnificent table and accompanying pier-set of 'looking glass' mirror and 'gueridon' stands to celebrate her marriage in 1679 to Henry Powle. The original table whose silver sheet bears the London hall-mark of 1680 and maker's mark, 'T.L.', was executed under the direction of Gerreit Jensen (d. 1715), the court cabinet-maker and glass seller of St. Martin's Lane (P. Macquoid, The Age of Walnut, 1905, figs. 76 and 77; The Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840, Leeds, 1986).
The table features amongst the treasures of Knole, Kent and was admired by Horace Walpole in 1780 as a 'Most Beautiful Table... of wrought silver'. It was noted by Fanny Burney as being 'Solid massive silver curiously embossed. Nothing could be more splendid' (E. Dobson (ed.), Diary of Letters of Madame D'Arblay, 1904, vol. I, p. 271, quoted in 'Visits to Country Houses', Walpole Society, vol. XVI, p. 77).
When the table was in the ownership of Mortimer Sackville West, (created 1st Baron Sackville in 1876), electroplate replicas were executed by the celebrated firm of Elkington. One of Elkington's 'Knole' tables was purchased in 1868 for 110 by the South Kensington Museum, now the Victoria and Albert Museum (no. 1868-122).
The table features amongst the treasures of Knole, Kent and was admired by Horace Walpole in 1780 as a 'Most Beautiful Table... of wrought silver'. It was noted by Fanny Burney as being 'Solid massive silver curiously embossed. Nothing could be more splendid' (E. Dobson (ed.), Diary of Letters of Madame D'Arblay, 1904, vol. I, p. 271, quoted in 'Visits to Country Houses', Walpole Society, vol. XVI, p. 77).
When the table was in the ownership of Mortimer Sackville West, (created 1st Baron Sackville in 1876), electroplate replicas were executed by the celebrated firm of Elkington. One of Elkington's 'Knole' tables was purchased in 1868 for 110 by the South Kensington Museum, now the Victoria and Albert Museum (no. 1868-122).