Lot Essay
These elliptical sideboard-tables have hermed feet and antique-fluted friezes inset with green paterae painted with grisaille heads. They were designed under the direction of James Wyatt (d.1813) for Sir Charles Sedley's new Nuthall Temple in Nottinghamshire. They were designed en suite with a set of twelve dining-chairs with the same paterae in their splats. The chairs were illustrated in situ in Christopher Hussey, 'Nuthall Temple', Country Life, 28 April 1923, p. 574, and were sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 7 July 1995, lot 121.
The tables would have stood behind simulated porphyry columns at the North and South sides of the room. By the time of the Country Life photographs the Dining Room had become a music room and the tables had been replaced by china cabinets. Confirmation that the tables had originally stood in these positions was provided by the owner, Robert Holden, who wrote in 1916 that 'The China Cupboards on the North and South side, and also those between the windows in the bow were placed there in the early part of the 19th Century when the room ceased to be used as a Dining Room. The 2 Hepplewhite pier tables, now on the North and South sides of the hall, were probably made for the spaces now occupied by the large cupboards' (R. Holden, Nuthall Temple, Notts: Its History and Contents, Nottingham, 1916, p. 8).
The tables would have stood behind simulated porphyry columns at the North and South sides of the room. By the time of the Country Life photographs the Dining Room had become a music room and the tables had been replaced by china cabinets. Confirmation that the tables had originally stood in these positions was provided by the owner, Robert Holden, who wrote in 1916 that 'The China Cupboards on the North and South side, and also those between the windows in the bow were placed there in the early part of the 19th Century when the room ceased to be used as a Dining Room. The 2 Hepplewhite pier tables, now on the North and South sides of the hall, were probably made for the spaces now occupied by the large cupboards' (R. Holden, Nuthall Temple, Notts: Its History and Contents, Nottingham, 1916, p. 8).