A GEORGE I SIMULATED-TORTOISESHELL, BLACK AND GILT-JAPANNED TRIPLE-FOLD TEA TABLE

CIRCA 1720

Details

A GEORGE I SIMULATED-TORTOISESHELL, BLACK AND GILT-JAPANNED TRIPLE-FOLD TEA TABLE
Circa 1720
The hinged rounded rectangular top decorated with a Chinese landscape scene, opening to a tortoiseshell-decorated playing surface, the second fold opening to a well, on cabriole legs with pad feet
28in. (71cm.) high, 24½in. (61.5cm.) wide, 13¼in. (33.5cm.) deep

Lot Essay

The multi-purpose window-pier table, with hinged tops concealing a well, has columnar legs terminating in round toes, and relates to a table illustrated in the 1730s trade-sheet of the High Holborn cabinet-maker Thomas Potter (d.1782). It is decorated in the fashionable Oriental manner with figures and landscapes on an exotic 'tortoiseshell' ground in the fashion long considered appropriate for bedroom apartments, and described in Messrs. Stalker and Parker's, Treatise on Japanning, 1688. A related pair of japanned tables were advertised by Philip Colleck of New York in The Connoisseur, May 1967. A related Chinese lacquered table was sold anonymously Christie's London, 19 June 1980, lot 127.

More from Important English Furniture

View All