Lot Essay
The dressing-table is conceived in the Louis XIV manner, and its veneer of mosaiced compartments of Roman acanthus is inlaid in shell cuts of walnut that are rayed from a central medallion. Such filigreed foliage appears on furniture supplied by Gerrit Jensen (d. 1715), who served as Cabinet-maker in ordinary to William and Mary, and is credited with the 'fine markatree' of a glass case supplied in 1693 and now at Kensington Palace ( R. Edwards and M. Jourdain, Georgian Cabinet-Makers, London 1955, p. 123). This table's inlay and mosaic pattern, closely relate to that of a glazed cabinet bearing the inlaid inscription of the Monmouth Square cabinet-maker Samuel Bennett, who was active from 1700 to 1770 ( C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture, Leeds, 1996, p. 105, fig. 112). A related table was sold by Lady Birley (+), Charleston Manor, Christie's house sale, 13-15 October 1980, lot 663, another was sold from from the Bute collection, in these Rooms, 3 July 1996, lot 12 and another was sold by the Trustees of the Warwick Castle Resettlement, 21 March 1968, lot 119.