MID-18TH CENTURY

The interlaced ribbon cartouche on the front legs of this card-table is identical to that on a set of chairs formerly in the collection of Viscount Leverhulme, sold Sotheby's house sale, Thornton Manor, 26-28 June 2001, lot 82. The pattern is a simpler variation of a pattern used apparently exclusively by Giles Grendey (1693-1780), one of the most successful London cabinet and chair-makers of his day. The benchmark set of chairs is one sold from Gunton Park, Norfolk in 1980 (C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Market London Furniture, Leeds, 1996, figs. 437-8). The Gunton Park set is labelled by Grendey, so confirms his authorship and allows the attribution of other sets with that leg. However, the cartouche is definitely simplified on this table and on the Leverhulme chairs and it seems equally likely that it is an interpretation of Grendey's pattern by a competitor.