THE BASE GEORGE II, CIRCA 1755, THE TOP RESHAPED, THE BRASS INLAY LATER

A decorative element of 18th century bedroom dressing apartments was the flowered china left on permanent display on tea-tables. This table's tray-top is shell-scalloped in the George II 'Roman' fashion evoking Venus, the water-borne nature deity, while its golden mosaic inlay and filigree of brass reflects French 'Louis Quatorze' elegance. A tripod 'claw' table with related trap-top, hollowed for a tea-equipage of pot and twelve cups, has been attributed to the Newport Street cabinet-maker, Frederick Hintz, who advertised in 1738: 'tea tables, tea chests, tea-boards [trays] etc. all curiously [finely] inlaid with fine figures of Brass ...' (acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1965 and illustrated in M. Snodin and J. Styles, Design & the Decorative Arts: Britain 1500-1900, London, 2001, p. 293, fig. 29). The latter, as well as the present lot, were illustrated in Gilbert & Murdoch, op.cit., figs. 147 & 155.