EARLY 19TH CENTURY

The unusual frame of this table with scrolling supports united by a scissor-action stretcher no doubt was originally designed to correspond with a center or sofa table. The combined French/Grecian ornament was promulgated during the Regency period by Thomas Hope's Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (1807) and in George Smith's A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture, (1808). A table of this pattern from the Villiers David Collection was sold by Christie's London, 21 November 1985, lot 82, and a pair of similar tables, possibly supplied to the Prince Regent, is in the Music Room at Buckingham Palace. A similar sofa table is illustrated in R. Edwards and P. Macquoid, The Dictionary of English Furniture, rev.edn., 1954, vol.III, p. 269, fig. 17.