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Lot Essay
The 'Chinese' fret-railed table, for china tea equipment, is designed in a fanciful manner fusing ornamental styles in the 'Modern' taste discussed in Thomas Chippendale's, The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754-1762.
Since the display of the tea-service served at that time to enliven fashionable bedroom-apartment reception rooms, Chippendale noted that such tray-railed 'China Tables' served for 'holding each a Set of China' or else 'may be used as Tea-Tables' (ibid., 3rd ed., 1762, pl. LI). This table's pilaster legs are etched with flowered-trellis within sunk compartments that are framed by fretted and 'gothic' cusp-arched ribbons in the manner of Chippendale's designs for a 'China Case' (1760) and 'China Shelves (1761) (ibid., pls. CXXXVI and CXLIII). The same pattern of bracketed leg features on a 'China Table' that is amongst the furniture that Chippendale (d. 1779) is thought to have supplied for Wilton House, Wiltshire (A. Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture, London, 1968, fig. 212).
Since the display of the tea-service served at that time to enliven fashionable bedroom-apartment reception rooms, Chippendale noted that such tray-railed 'China Tables' served for 'holding each a Set of China' or else 'may be used as Tea-Tables' (ibid., 3rd ed., 1762, pl. LI). This table's pilaster legs are etched with flowered-trellis within sunk compartments that are framed by fretted and 'gothic' cusp-arched ribbons in the manner of Chippendale's designs for a 'China Case' (1760) and 'China Shelves (1761) (ibid., pls. CXXXVI and CXLIII). The same pattern of bracketed leg features on a 'China Table' that is amongst the furniture that Chippendale (d. 1779) is thought to have supplied for Wilton House, Wiltshire (A. Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture, London, 1968, fig. 212).