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Lot Essay
The pier tables' tops can be attributed to the cabinet-makers Seddon, Sons & Shackleton, who specialised in fine painted furniture. Their distinctive peacock border relates to the earliest documented commission of Messrs Seddon, Sons and Shackleton: for D. Tupper at Hauteville House, St. Peter Port, Guernsey, who in 1790 was invoiced for furnishings to the value of £414 11s. 4d. (C. Gilbert 'Seddon, Sons & Shackleton', Furniture History, vol. XXXIII, 1991, p. 2.) This commission included a suite of satinwood shield-back chairs and window seats with a matching card table, decorated with painted roses and peacock feathers. The card table and pair of satinwood armchairs were sold anonymously, Sotheby's, London, 20 November 1970, lots 190 and 191 respectively.
Another house associated with peacock-feather decorated furniture is Daylesford, Gloucestershire. A Louis XVI style bed with frame and columnar pillars wreathed by 'Juno' peacock feathers was commissioned circa 1790 from the Soho firm of John Mayhew and William Ince by Warren Hastings (d.1818), the celebrated statesman and former Governor-General of India. At the 1853 Daylesford sale, held on the death of Warren Hastings's step-son, Sir Charles Imhoff, the Hastings 'peacock' bed (lot 321) was purchased, together with other 'Peacock' furnishings from the Peacock Room at Daylesford, by the Wardour Street dealer Louis Nathan and acquired for Sandon Park (L. Boynton, 'The Furniture of Warren Hastings', Burlington Magazine, August 1970, pp. 509-520).
Another house associated with peacock-feather decorated furniture is Daylesford, Gloucestershire. A Louis XVI style bed with frame and columnar pillars wreathed by 'Juno' peacock feathers was commissioned circa 1790 from the Soho firm of John Mayhew and William Ince by Warren Hastings (d.1818), the celebrated statesman and former Governor-General of India. At the 1853 Daylesford sale, held on the death of Warren Hastings's step-son, Sir Charles Imhoff, the Hastings 'peacock' bed (lot 321) was purchased, together with other 'Peacock' furnishings from the Peacock Room at Daylesford, by the Wardour Street dealer Louis Nathan and acquired for Sandon Park (L. Boynton, 'The Furniture of Warren Hastings', Burlington Magazine, August 1970, pp. 509-520).