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Lot Essay
The tablets are designed in the George III Roman style popularised by The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam (1773-9). Their lamp-lit, laurel-festooned, myrtle-wreathed and sunflowered 'libation' paterae, as well as their bacchic ram-headed altar-tripods, were composed from The Works... furniture patterns in the fanciful antique manner adopted by the Soho cabinet-maker William Ince.
A larger and closely related panel has been recorded, and this features a Roman lamp in the manner of the celebrated 'Windsor' lamp engraved in 1718 by John Talman before its presentation to the Society of Antiquaries. The latter panel, which is now in a private collection and incorporated in a cupboard door, has been attributed to the Golden Square firm of Ince and Mayhew. They had helped furnish Croome Court, Worcestershire under Robert Adam's direction, and in 1767 has supplied it with a related mahogany ram-headed tripod. They also inlaid such bacchic tripods on their sideboard-pedestals supplied around 1770 for the Earl of Kerry's Portman Square house (C. Cator, The Earl of Kerry and Mayhew and Ince, Furniture History, 1990, pp.27-33, fig. 3).
A larger and closely related panel has been recorded, and this features a Roman lamp in the manner of the celebrated 'Windsor' lamp engraved in 1718 by John Talman before its presentation to the Society of Antiquaries. The latter panel, which is now in a private collection and incorporated in a cupboard door, has been attributed to the Golden Square firm of Ince and Mayhew. They had helped furnish Croome Court, Worcestershire under Robert Adam's direction, and in 1767 has supplied it with a related mahogany ram-headed tripod. They also inlaid such bacchic tripods on their sideboard-pedestals supplied around 1770 for the Earl of Kerry's Portman Square house (C. Cator, The Earl of Kerry and Mayhew and Ince, Furniture History, 1990, pp.27-33, fig. 3).