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Lot Essay
The 'Roman' marble-topped sideboard-table is designed in the George II fashion evoking the feast of Bacchus in antiquity. Its lambrequined frieze, which is wreathed by a flowered ribbon-guilloche, displays 'Venus' shells and a bacchic lion-head with 'Jupiter' oak garlands; while lion-paws support its pilaster legs, which are capped by palm-wrapped and voluted trusses. It relates to 'Roman' table patterns in William Jones The Gentleman or Builder's Companion, 1739; and to one invented in the 1730s by the architect William Kent (d.1748) and published J. Vardy, Some Designs of Mr Inigo Jones and Mr William Kent, 1744. It is significant to note, therefore, that Jones's book was imported into Dublin in the same year and was 'sold by Robert Owen in Skinners Row for 12s'.
An Irish giltwood console table of very similar character, originally from Dromoland Castle, Co. Clare, is in a Private Collection (and will be illustrated in the forthcoming book on Irish Furniture by The Knight of Glin and James Peill, 2006). Its legs are also headed by large Roman acanthus leaves and its apron is hung with garlands of flowers and ears of corn centred by a lion mask with 'wild' mane; similar features appear on the Trade Card of William Wilkinson of Chequer Lane, Dublin, presumably the same man as William Wilkenson, carver and gilder, recorded in Dublin Directories in Chequer Lane, 1761-1774 and at 34, Exchange Street, 1775-1784.
Several of this table's distinctive features - inluding the garlanded lion mask with 'wild' mane and square section legs - are also shared with the Kentian oak and pine side table in a Private Collection, sold at Adams, Dublin, 7 September 1994.
An Irish giltwood console table of very similar character, originally from Dromoland Castle, Co. Clare, is in a Private Collection (and will be illustrated in the forthcoming book on Irish Furniture by The Knight of Glin and James Peill, 2006). Its legs are also headed by large Roman acanthus leaves and its apron is hung with garlands of flowers and ears of corn centred by a lion mask with 'wild' mane; similar features appear on the Trade Card of William Wilkinson of Chequer Lane, Dublin, presumably the same man as William Wilkenson, carver and gilder, recorded in Dublin Directories in Chequer Lane, 1761-1774 and at 34, Exchange Street, 1775-1784.
Several of this table's distinctive features - inluding the garlanded lion mask with 'wild' mane and square section legs - are also shared with the Kentian oak and pine side table in a Private Collection, sold at Adams, Dublin, 7 September 1994.