Lot Essay
This hinged tray-top table, conceived in the Louis XVI antique manner with Grecian-scrolled feet and lyre trestle-ends, is designed in the Louis XVI antique manner, such as a tricoteuse supplied for Marie-Antoinette's appartments at Fontainebleau in the mid-1780's (N. de Reynies, Le Mobilier Domestique, vol. 1, Paris, 1987, no. 1306). An engraving for a lady's 'French Work Table', also featuring an eliptic tray stretcher, was published in Thomas Sheraton's Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing-Book, 1793, pl. 54.
The angular drop handles are characteristic of the oeuvre of Messrs. Gillows of Lancaster and London and featured, for instance, on a 1795 design for a cabinet in 'canarywood', illustrated in L. Boynton, Gillow Furniture Designs 1760-1800, Royston, 1995, col. pl. 10. A closely related table, lacking the drawer, was exhibited by Mallett at the Grosvenor House Antiques Fair, June 1995
The angular drop handles are characteristic of the oeuvre of Messrs. Gillows of Lancaster and London and featured, for instance, on a 1795 design for a cabinet in 'canarywood', illustrated in L. Boynton, Gillow Furniture Designs 1760-1800, Royston, 1995, col. pl. 10. A closely related table, lacking the drawer, was exhibited by Mallett at the Grosvenor House Antiques Fair, June 1995