EARLY 19TH CENTURY, NORTH EUROPEAN

The Grecian-black table is decorated in the 'Etruscan' style derived from vase engravings in d'Hancarville's, Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities from the Cabinet of the Hon. W. Hamilton, Naples, 1766-1776. The laurel-wreathed top recalls The 'Loves of the Gods' or the Metamorphoses of Ovid and the epic poetry of Homer's Iliad, and depicts festive nymphs celebrating Jupiter's love for the nereid Thetis, the mother of the Greek hero Achilles. The music-making nymphs, derive (in reverse) from T. Martyn and J. Lettice's, The Antiquities of Herculaneum, London, 1773 (pls. XX and XXI); while the central veil-draped vignette of Jupiter and Thetis relates to John Flaxman's illustrations engraved by William Blake for his publication of Homer's Iliad, 1805 (D. Bindman, John Flaxman, R.A., London, 1979, pp. 158 and 159.