TWO GEORGE III HAREWOOD AND MARQUETRY SEMI-ELLIPTICAL PIER TABLES

ATTRIBUTED TO WILLIAM MOORE OF DUBLIN

Details
TWO GEORGE III HAREWOOD AND MARQUETRY SEMI-ELLIPTICAL PIER TABLES
Attributed to William Moore of Dublin
TABLE A (illustrated on the right) with crossbanded top, segment-veneered from a foliate fan medallion, the field with ribbon-tied husk swags and with a foliate border, above a frieze with further ribbon-tied husks and anthemions, on square tapering legs with husk trails, the feet with medalion-inlaid collars, with depository label for 'THE NATIONAL FURNITURE DEPOSITORIES' inscribed in chalk '20/2/23/A.LA.../14' and with label for 'R.STRAHAN, CO.LTD,... DUBLIN' and with number '09385', probably slightly reduced in depth;
TABLE B (illustrated on the left) with crossbanded top segment-veneered from a fan medalion, with shamrock trails across the centre and around the border, above a panelled frieze with further ribbon-tied flowers, on square tapering legs headed by burr-yew oval panels and with husk trails, with medallion-inlaid collars to the feet, with 'The National Furniture Depository' label inscribed in pencil with further label for 'R.STRAHAN and Co Ltd' of Dublin with inventory number '09386'
One 35 in. (90 cm.) high; 52 cm. (132 cm.) wide; 19 in. (50 cm.) deep
The other 35 in. (89.5 cm.) high; 54 in. (137.5 cm.) wide; 21 in. (53.5 cm.) deep (2)
Exhibited
On loan to the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery from the late 1970s to 1999.

Lot Essay

TABLE A

The marquetried and herm-legged pier table has an elliptical top, centred by a Palmyran sunflowered, scalloped and husk-enriched medallion. It is festooned with beribboned laurels within a golden ribbon-band wreathed with laurels, while beribboned laurels also festoon its palm-flowered frieze.
A pattern for such a table, with medallioned and segmental top, features in Thomas Malton's Compleat Treatise on Perspective, 2nd ed., 1778, pl. XXXIV. Such pier tables were also noted by the London-trained Dublin cabinet-maker William Moore (d. l815) in his 1782 advertisement of 'Inlaid Work' in the Dublin Evening Post, which announced 'Pier-Tables...just finished in the newest taste'.
A palm-flowered frieze, with the addition of urns, features on one of Moore's commodes acquired in l782 by William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, Marquess of Titchfield, afterwards 3rd Duke of Portland (d. l809), who served as George III's Lord Lieutenant in Ireland. The palm and urn frieze also appears on a related commode acquired in l925 by the Victoria and Albert Museum (see D. Fitz-Gerald, Georgian Furniture, London, l969, no. l08).
Similar patterned tops feature on a herm-legged table with trompe l'oeil fluted frieze recorded in a private collection and also on a pair of tables, with giltwood frames, sold anonymously, Sotheby's London, 5 July l991, lot 134.


TABLE B

The marquetried and herm-legged table has an elliptical top centred by a scalloped and husk-enriched medallion that is wreathed by beribboned shamrocks, the leaf adopted as a symbol of Irish Volunteers and in 1791 as the symbol of United Irishmen. The table frieze is inlaid with marble-like medallions such as feature on an elliptical pier table, that serves as a case for a pianoforte and bears the signature of the Dublin cabinet-maker and inlayer, William Moore (d. 1815), who from 1794 advertised himself as 'Cabinet and Piano-forte Maker' (see C. Musgrave, Adam and Hepplewhite Furniture, London, l966, fig. 170).

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