THIRD QUARTER 18TH CENTURY

Details

A GEORGE III MAHOGANY AND LIMEWOOD SERVING-TABLE
THIRD QUARTER 18TH CENTURY
The rectangular crossbanded top with bowfront, above a frieze decorated with ears of corn, centred by a carved panel with two griffins holding a gadrooned dish in their wings, above a radiating sun-ray medallion, the legs headed by paterae, on square tapering legs decorated with entrelac, on block feet
37 in. (94 cm.) high; 56 in. (142.5 cm.) wide; 23¾ in. (60.5 cm.) deep

Provenance

By repute Lady Aberconway (wife of Charles, 1st Baron Aberconway, d. 1933) or Lady Aberconway (wife of Henry, 2nd Baron Aberconway, d. 1974), Bodnant, Denbighshire.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

The rectangular sideboard-table, with herm-tapered feet and projecting ellipse, reflects the 1770's Roman fashion later popularised in Messrs A. Hepplewhite and Co.'s, Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, 1788. Intended for the display of plate, its 'antique' ornament derives from publications such as, The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam, 1772-79. It comprises Ceres' libation-paterae imbricating the herm-tapered legs, while her sacred corn enriches the antique-fluted frieze; in addition 'Apollo' sunflowered medallions frame a bas-relief tablet, which displays a bacchic wine-tazza borne by the poetry deity's sacred griffin, and its sunflowered and shell-scalloped medallion serves as lambrequin-drapery above a wine-cistern, that would have stood under the table. The hermed legs' imbricated patera featured as Egyptian ornament in a bed-pattern issued in 1804 in Thomas Sheraton's, Cabinet-Maker, Upholsterer and General Artist's Encyclopaedia.

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