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Lot Essay
These tables, with fluted and oak-festooned shell frieze supported on truss-scrolled legs enriched with imbricated paterae and scales, corresponds to Roman-style sideboard-tables associated with the Rome-trained court architect William Kent (d.1748). The frames projecting and canted 'tablet' corners are supported on voluted trusses, imbricated with Venus dolphin-scales and wrapped by husk-festooned Roman acanthus. These motifs are shared with William Kent's 'Chiswick' chimneypiece and 'Walpole' sideboard-table pattern of 1731 illustrated in J. Vardy's Some Designs of Mr Inigo Jones and Mr William Kent, 1744 (pls. 35 and 41).
This tables pattern is inspired by a pair of tables supplied to Burlington House, Piccadilly, where they are recorded in a 1770 Inventory. Subsequently moved to Devonshire House, London, these tables were taken to Chatsworth following the demolition of Devonshire House in the 1920's. It is very likely, therefore, that a firm such as Lenygon and Morant - who specialised in the copying of Kentian models- may have been inspired to make copies of the Devonshire tables at this time. Certainly, in 1924 Francis Lenygon published an extremely closely related table in his Furniture in England from 1660 to 1760, 2nd edition, fig. 191.
The fashion for Kent's architecture and furniture was further promoted in the mid-20th century by the furniture historian Margaret Jourdain's publication, The Work of William Kent, London, 1948.
A closely related table of this model was sold from the collection of Geoffrey Bennison in these Rooms, 26-27 September 1985, lot 82.
This tables pattern is inspired by a pair of tables supplied to Burlington House, Piccadilly, where they are recorded in a 1770 Inventory. Subsequently moved to Devonshire House, London, these tables were taken to Chatsworth following the demolition of Devonshire House in the 1920's. It is very likely, therefore, that a firm such as Lenygon and Morant - who specialised in the copying of Kentian models- may have been inspired to make copies of the Devonshire tables at this time. Certainly, in 1924 Francis Lenygon published an extremely closely related table in his Furniture in England from 1660 to 1760, 2nd edition, fig. 191.
The fashion for Kent's architecture and furniture was further promoted in the mid-20th century by the furniture historian Margaret Jourdain's publication, The Work of William Kent, London, 1948.
A closely related table of this model was sold from the collection of Geoffrey Bennison in these Rooms, 26-27 September 1985, lot 82.