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Lot Essay
The unusual table is closely related to a documented octagonal-topped example supplied by London cabinet-maker William Masters to the 2nd Duke of Atholl for Atholl House (now Blair Castle), Perthshire in 1755 (illustrated in A. Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture, New York, 1968, fig.398). While the bases are closely related, the difference lies in the flattened squared feet on this example. Another with a virtually identical base with rectangular lozenge-form top from the collection of Marjorie Wiggin Prescott, sold Christie's, New York, 31 January 1981, lot 286 and is illustrated in C. Claxton Stevens and S. Whittington, 18th Century English Furniture: The Norman Adams Collection, Woodbridge, 1983, p.297. A table with a very similar base but without stretchers was sold from the Michael Lipitch Gallery, Sotheby's London, 22 May 1998, lot 217. Another is illustrated in F.W. Hinckley, Metropolitan Furniture of the Georgian Years, New York, 1988, p.104, fig.155. A further example was sold in these Rooms, 12 April 1996, lot 99.
A related tea/china-table, formerly in the collection the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti (d. 1882) in the 1860s, was described as being of 'an exceptionally graceful and well proportioned design', by the furniture historian R.W. Symonds (d.1952). It was amongst the celebrated collection of Georgian furniture he had helped assemble since 1911 at Sandrigebury, Hertfordshire for the connoisseur Percival D. Griffith, F.S.A. (d.1937); and was chosen in 1943 to represent the taste of this 'Great Collector of English Furniture', in Symonds' Memoir of Mr. Griffith, in The Antique Collector, Nov-Dec. 1943 (p.169, fig. 6). It also featured in Symonds, English Furniture from Charles II to George II, 1929 (fig. 193).
A related tea/china-table, formerly in the collection the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti (d. 1882) in the 1860s, was described as being of 'an exceptionally graceful and well proportioned design', by the furniture historian R.W. Symonds (d.1952). It was amongst the celebrated collection of Georgian furniture he had helped assemble since 1911 at Sandrigebury, Hertfordshire for the connoisseur Percival D. Griffith, F.S.A. (d.1937); and was chosen in 1943 to represent the taste of this 'Great Collector of English Furniture', in Symonds' Memoir of Mr. Griffith, in The Antique Collector, Nov-Dec. 1943 (p.169, fig. 6). It also featured in Symonds, English Furniture from Charles II to George II, 1929 (fig. 193).