CIRCA 1745-50

The design of this table corresponds closely to the designs executed by William Jones, architect and designer, in his The Gentlemens or Builders Companion, 1739. This design book, among the earliest produced by an English author, produced twenty designs for tables and mirrors that recall the works of Inigo Jones and William Kent, while exhibiting a lightness in design that clearly shows the influence of French artisans such as Nicolas Pineau. The hipped shell-headed and imbricated design of these legs, together with the floral garland frieze closely relate to plate 31 in the Companion, while grotesque masks appear in plate 27 (see P. Ward-Jackson, English Furniture Designs of the Eighteenth Century, London, 1958, pl.21-23).