POSSIBLY BY MAYHEW AND INCE, CIRCA 1775

The leg profile first appears in two designs dated 1767 executed by the architect Robert Adam. One depicts a sideboard table for the Earl of Coventry, and the other a sofa for the Library at Kenwood which is later published in The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam, vol.I, 1774 (see E. Harris, The Furniture of Robert Adam, 1963, figs. 14 and 59). As Adam worked with many of London's pre-eminent cabinet-making firms it is difficult to determine with certainty the maker of this table however it may have been executed by the Broad Street cabinet-makers John Mayhew and William Ince. One can refer to the celebrated Gobelins-covered suite of seat furniture supplied by the firm for the Drawing Room at Croome Court, Worcestershire in 1769 and now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (see G. Beard, 'Decorators and Furniture Makers at Croome Court', Furniture History, 1993, p.113, fig.8). They also delivered a side table with similar 'turned legs, neatly carved' to Croome as late as 1794 to accomodate an earlier marble top (G. Beard, op.cit., p.111, fig.2). A pair of corner drop-leaf tables which feature this same leg with the addition of a beeded collar was sold from the Estate of Halsted B. Vanderpoel in these Rooms, 8 April 2004, lot 190.