Lot Essay
This table is part of a suite that also consists of twelve side chairs, two armchairs, a footstool and a writing-table. Lord Leverhulme bought the entire suite from Moss Harris as well as five unrelated pieces of bluejohn. He paid #650 for the whole group.
On the first day of the 1926 sale (9 February), the chairs and footstool were lots 188-191 and the writing-table lot 140. A pair of the side chairs were subsequently sold (as Louis XVI) by the Westmoreland Museum of Art, Sotheby's New York, 31 March 1990, lot 206, and four further side chairs were sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 15 November 1990, lot 56.
The painted top is made up of two segmental late 18th Century Neapolitan gouaches of Vesuvius, framing a circular English stipple engraving. The gouaches may well have been purchased by an English traveller on the Grand Tour. A gouache of the same semi-circular form, and of almost exactly the same subject and composition, was purchased by Jonas Brooke while staying in Naples in 1784. It is to be included in Christie's house sale at Mere Hall, Cheshire, on 23 May 1994, lot 231. The stipple engraving is probably 'The Merry Story' by J.R. Smith. The boy is the same figure as in the companion print 'The Sad Story'.
Slindon Hall was the seat of the Kemp family in the early 18th Century. Barbara Kemp (d.1797), eventual sole heiress of Anthony Kemp, married James, 4th Earl of Newburgh (d.1787) in 1749. Since the early 19th Century the Earls of Newburgh have been Italian and Slindon was sold and rebuilt early this century.
We are grateful to Miss Lucy Wood and to Mr. Norman Blackburn for their help in preparing this catalogue entry.
On the first day of the 1926 sale (9 February), the chairs and footstool were lots 188-191 and the writing-table lot 140. A pair of the side chairs were subsequently sold (as Louis XVI) by the Westmoreland Museum of Art, Sotheby's New York, 31 March 1990, lot 206, and four further side chairs were sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 15 November 1990, lot 56.
The painted top is made up of two segmental late 18th Century Neapolitan gouaches of Vesuvius, framing a circular English stipple engraving. The gouaches may well have been purchased by an English traveller on the Grand Tour. A gouache of the same semi-circular form, and of almost exactly the same subject and composition, was purchased by Jonas Brooke while staying in Naples in 1784. It is to be included in Christie's house sale at Mere Hall, Cheshire, on 23 May 1994, lot 231. The stipple engraving is probably 'The Merry Story' by J.R. Smith. The boy is the same figure as in the companion print 'The Sad Story'.
Slindon Hall was the seat of the Kemp family in the early 18th Century. Barbara Kemp (d.1797), eventual sole heiress of Anthony Kemp, married James, 4th Earl of Newburgh (d.1787) in 1749. Since the early 19th Century the Earls of Newburgh have been Italian and Slindon was sold and rebuilt early this century.
We are grateful to Miss Lucy Wood and to Mr. Norman Blackburn for their help in preparing this catalogue entry.