CIRCA 1730, POSSIBLY WÜRZBURG

The marble-slab frame, with bacchic satyr-headed and voluted truss pilasters tied by stretchers centred by an urn-plinth, derives from a Louis XIV Roman pattern that was reissued in London in 1740 in B. Langleys, The City and Country-Builders and Workmans Treasury of Designs, (pl. 147). Included with the latter was a 1739 picturesque pattern for a more contemporary flower-festooned Table Frame, whose satyr-headed legs terminated in bacchic lion-paws. A closely related table, with shell-cartouched stretcher, formed part of the H.J. Joel collection, sold Christie's Childwick Bury sale, 15-17 May 1978 (lot 38). Its pattern, apart from the central cartouche, is shared with a table sold in these Rooms 14 December 1995, lot 143; and a similar one was supplied by the London decorator Felix Harbord to the Marchioness of Dafferin and Ava (sold Christie's, London 25 March 1999, lot 487).

A design also survives for a related satyr-headed console-table proposed for the Residenz in Wurzburg (H.Kreisel Die Kunst des Deutschen Mobels, Munich, 1970, Vol. II, fig.508).