Lot Essay
The marble-slabbed pier or sideboard table is designed in the George II manner appropriate for the furnishing of the banqueting hall or dining-room of a Palladian villa. With its Venus-shell badge emerging from Roman acanthus, and serpentined and acanthus-wrapped legs terminating in Jove's eagle-claws, it relates to 'Pier Table' patterns issued in William Jones's The Gentleman or Builder's Companion, 1739. A set of George II carved and mahogany tables of similar small proportions was supplied to William Weddell, Esq. for Newby Hall, Yorkshire and are recorded in Thomas Chippendale the Younger's 1792 inventory as '2 Carv'd Table frames - Grey Granite Slabs' (illustrated in Newby Hall, Guidebook, Norwich, 1996, p. 8). The mahogany is treated with a dark stain that was particularly popular in Ireland, and may indicate an Irish origin for the table.