MID-18TH CENTURY

The china-table with shell-scalloped tray on Roman tripod pillar and 'claw' relates to a 1730s pattern in Thomas Potter's trade-sheet; while its French-fashioned 'shell' flowered wreath of golden 'boulle' brass inlay corresponds to the contemporary 'Choice Tea-Boards' advertised as being 'inlaid with fine Figures of Brass and Mother of Pearl' by the Moravian cabinet-maker Johann Friedrich Hintz (d. 1776) of Newport Street (G. Beard and C. Gilbert (eds.), The Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840, Leeds, 1986, p. 434). A similarly inlaid tray hollowed with cinquefoil-flowered compartment for tea-pot encircled by ten roundels for saucers and cups was formerly owned by Earl of Wemyss, Elcho Castle, Perth and latterly sold by Mr. Walter P. Chrysler, Parke Bernet Galleries, New York, 7 May 1960, lot 504.

Another inlaid table with lobed top and fluted column, but shoe-carved feet, in mahogany was sold by Mr & Mrs Saul P. Steinberg, Sotheby's New York, 26 May 2000, lot 196 ($280,750).