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拍品專文
The table can be attributed to the Soho Square cabinet-maker William Bradshaw (d. 1775), who is credited with the manufacture of magnificent drawing-room seat furniture supplied both for the 4th Earl of Chesterfield's London House and for the Earls of Radnor, Longford Castle, Wiltshire. The luxuriant foliage was carved on the Chesterfield suite to harmonise with that framing their flowered tapestry, that Tobias Stranover (d. 1756), a former partner of Bradshaw's is likely to have designed in the 1730s (G. Beard, Upholsterers and Interior Furnishing in England, London, 1997, figs. 203 and 204; and G. Beard, 'William Bradshaw: Furniture Maker and Tapestry Weaver', Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal, New York, 2002, pp. 167-169). A suite of seat furniture of similar feeling was sold from the collection of Sir John Ward, K.C.V.O., Christie's, London, 4 July 2002, lots 101-102 (a pair of corner sofas and a pair of corner bergeres). The sofas and bergeres, although unattributed, may have been by another Soho firm, Samuel Norman (d. 1768) and James Whittle (d. 1759). They also shared the rich gilt-foliate and shell carving on their waved aprons and cabriole legs.
The handsome sideboard-table's serpentined and golden-sculpted frame combines French 'picturesque' architecture with the poets' concept of the golden Arcadian Age of Peace and Plenty. Its 'Roman' marble slab served for 'buffet' display-plate; while a 'bacchic' marble wine-cistern would have stood beneath the table. The frame, enwreathed by voluted reeds and richly 'raffled' Roman acanthus, displays the foliated shell badge of the nature-deity Venus on an armorial pelta-scrolled lambrequin that recalls the Virgilian concept:- 'agriculture flourishes, with arms and armour laid aside'. Wave-scrolled foliage ties it to pearl-centred and shell-scalloped cartouches; while more acanthus enriches the sarcophagus-scrolled columnar legs and Ionic voluted feet.
While relating to 'frames of marble tables, after the French Manner' (invented by N. Pineau) issued by B. Langley in The City and Country Builder's and Workman's Treasury of Designs, 1740, it also demonstrates Italian influence from Gaetano Brunetti's, Sixty Different Sorts of Ornament, 1736.
A copy of the gilding analyis report is available on request.
The handsome sideboard-table's serpentined and golden-sculpted frame combines French 'picturesque' architecture with the poets' concept of the golden Arcadian Age of Peace and Plenty. Its 'Roman' marble slab served for 'buffet' display-plate; while a 'bacchic' marble wine-cistern would have stood beneath the table. The frame, enwreathed by voluted reeds and richly 'raffled' Roman acanthus, displays the foliated shell badge of the nature-deity Venus on an armorial pelta-scrolled lambrequin that recalls the Virgilian concept:- 'agriculture flourishes, with arms and armour laid aside'. Wave-scrolled foliage ties it to pearl-centred and shell-scalloped cartouches; while more acanthus enriches the sarcophagus-scrolled columnar legs and Ionic voluted feet.
While relating to 'frames of marble tables, after the French Manner' (invented by N. Pineau) issued by B. Langley in The City and Country Builder's and Workman's Treasury of Designs, 1740, it also demonstrates Italian influence from Gaetano Brunetti's, Sixty Different Sorts of Ornament, 1736.
A copy of the gilding analyis report is available on request.