EARLY 19TH CENTURY

Details

A REGENCY BRASS-INLAID AND ORMOLU-MOUNTED TORTOISESHELL AND EBONISED DRUM TABLE
Early 19th century
The circular top with gilt-tooled red leather-lined writing-surface above four cedar-lined frieze drawers, each inlaid with première partie Bérainesque designs, flanked by panels each inlaid with contre partie designs, on a faceted shaft and four splayed legs, with later brass paw caps and castors
29 in. (73.5 cm.) high; 36 in. (91.5 cm.) diameter

Provenance

Anonymous sale, Sotheby's London, 13 March 1981, lot 206.
Anonymous sale, in these Rooms, 5 April 2001, lot 117 (£7,637).

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

Lot Essay

The library-table, with ebony and brass-inlaid pillar and Grecian-scrolled 'claw', has its frieze veneered in boulle-inlaid tortoiseshell in the Louis Quatorze manner. Its filigreed tablets, with vases attended by birds alternating with dogs dancing to pipe-playing monkeys, correspond to those found on the drawers of 17th Century commodes and derive from the engravings of Jean Bérain (d. 1711). This form of 'boulle' inlay is particularly associated with the work of the cabinet-maker Thomas Parker of 19 Air Street, Piccadilly, who supplied a pair of related tables for Carlton House in 1814 for George, Prince of Wales, later George IV (The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, Exhibition Catalogue, Carlton House: The Past Glories of George IV's Palace, London, 1991, no. 62).

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