MID-19TH CENTURY, ALMOST CERTAINLY SUPPLIED BY J.G. CRACE UNDER A.W.N. PUGIN'S DIRECTION

The Drawing Room octagonal 'Loo' table, richly carved with wild-men emerging from its foliated frieze and lions from its plinth, was commissioned in the 1840s for Chirk's Red Drawing Room by Colonel Robert Myddelton Biddulph, and designed en suite with the sofa writing-table (Lot 158). In the splendid interiors which he created, Pugin believed in incorporating fragments of ancient wood carving to enrich the modern work. This centre-table reflects the contemporary 'antiquarian' or Wardour-Street style, as well as the contemporary appreciation for ancient Welsh carvings ; while its Italian elements would harmonise with the Renaissance colourings introduced by Pugin and Crace to the room's Geor ge III 'Roman' or 'antique' ceiling of the 1770s. The table is like ly to have been supplied under Pugin's direction by Crace. It would have been intended to display one of Pugin's heraldically-flowered and Minton-manufactured plant-pots (jardinieres) (see Lot 119), as appears in an 1862 watercolour of the room executed by the Hon Mrs Mary Wombwell (from an album retained by the Myddelton family).

In the undated 1870's 'Inventory of the Household Goods and Furniture etc. etc. at Chirk Castle', this table is listed as a 'Brown oak loo table' in the State Saloon.