Lot Essay
These marble slab frames are designed in the George II 'antique' or Roman manner with egg-and-dart cornices, Grecian ribbon-fret friezes and French flowered ribbon-twist guilloche borders. Each table displays Venus's triumphal and acanthus-framed 'shell' badge in its frieze cartouche. This is accompanied by garlands on the serpentine legs, which are carried by bacchic lion paws.
These tables stood on the dining-room window-piers at Langley Park, Norfolk. This Palladian villa of the early 1740s was erected for George Proctor (d.1744), on his return from living in Venice. He employed the Norwich architect Matthew Brettingham (d.1769), who was also patronised by the Earl of Leicester at Holkham Hall. A Venetian portrait of George Proctor hung in the dining-room, whose stuccoed ceiling was embellished by an Apollo mask in glory within a Vitruvian wave-scrolled border. The tables, with Roman marble slabs and Venus and Bacchic ornament stood beneath veil-festooned pier-glasses held by Jupiter's eagles. The furnishing of the house was completed by George Proctor's nephew, Sir William Beauchamp-Proctor, 1st Bt. (1722-1773), and the tables together with the chairs (lots 101-103 in this sale) were illustrated in situ in Country Life in 1927 (see: O. Brackett, 'Langley Park', Country Life, 2 July 1927, p. 18, fig. 4).
Oliver Brackett noted about these tables and their companions at Langley, that they 'are in every respect brilliant examples of their type. In the first place they all possess that indefinable quality known as style. They are distinguished in line, ornament is arranged to produce an effect of richness without overcrowding, carving is executed with great spirit and technical skill'.
The table legs relate to those of sideboard-tables commisioned for Ham House, Surrey about 1740. Its frieze and cartouche relate to a table that is now in the Victoria & Albert Museum (no. W.4-1965). The design also relates to 'slab table' patterns such as William Jones issued in his Gentleman or Builder's Companion, 1739, pls. 29 and 32.
These tables stood on the dining-room window-piers at Langley Park, Norfolk. This Palladian villa of the early 1740s was erected for George Proctor (d.1744), on his return from living in Venice. He employed the Norwich architect Matthew Brettingham (d.1769), who was also patronised by the Earl of Leicester at Holkham Hall. A Venetian portrait of George Proctor hung in the dining-room, whose stuccoed ceiling was embellished by an Apollo mask in glory within a Vitruvian wave-scrolled border. The tables, with Roman marble slabs and Venus and Bacchic ornament stood beneath veil-festooned pier-glasses held by Jupiter's eagles. The furnishing of the house was completed by George Proctor's nephew, Sir William Beauchamp-Proctor, 1st Bt. (1722-1773), and the tables together with the chairs (lots 101-103 in this sale) were illustrated in situ in Country Life in 1927 (see: O. Brackett, 'Langley Park', Country Life, 2 July 1927, p. 18, fig. 4).
Oliver Brackett noted about these tables and their companions at Langley, that they 'are in every respect brilliant examples of their type. In the first place they all possess that indefinable quality known as style. They are distinguished in line, ornament is arranged to produce an effect of richness without overcrowding, carving is executed with great spirit and technical skill'.
The table legs relate to those of sideboard-tables commisioned for Ham House, Surrey about 1740. Its frieze and cartouche relate to a table that is now in the Victoria & Albert Museum (no. W.4-1965). The design also relates to 'slab table' patterns such as William Jones issued in his Gentleman or Builder's Companion, 1739, pls. 29 and 32.