.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This rare Library table, with antique-fluted pillar raised on a palm-wrapped tripod 'claw', is extremely advanced stylistically. In the profile of the leg, it recalls the full-size working drawings almost certainly supplied by Thomas Chippendale for provincial craftsmen to use at Harewood circa 1774 (see lot 270). The 'palm' leaf carving to the tripod also recalls the series of Library tripod tables supplied under Henry Holland's direction, possibly by Mayhew and Ince, to both Woburn Abbey and Southill, Bedfordshire in the late 1780s.
It is exceptionally unusual at this date to have a Library 'drum' table supported upon a tripod (or quadripartite) base, as opposed to being supported upon a solid central plinth. As such, this table appears to be a prototype for the later patterns of 'altar-drum' writing-tables such as those illustrated in Gillows' Estimate Sketch Books of 1795 or Thomas Sheraton's, Encyclopaedia, 1804 (pl.37). A related tripod drum table was sold by James, Viscount Ullswater, P.C., G.C.B. (1855-1949), The High House, Campsea Ashe, Suffolk, Garrard, Turner & Son's house sale, 24-31 October 1949, lot 1170.
It is exceptionally unusual at this date to have a Library 'drum' table supported upon a tripod (or quadripartite) base, as opposed to being supported upon a solid central plinth. As such, this table appears to be a prototype for the later patterns of 'altar-drum' writing-tables such as those illustrated in Gillows' Estimate Sketch Books of 1795 or Thomas Sheraton's, Encyclopaedia, 1804 (pl.37). A related tripod drum table was sold by James, Viscount Ullswater, P.C., G.C.B. (1855-1949), The High House, Campsea Ashe, Suffolk, Garrard, Turner & Son's house sale, 24-31 October 1949, lot 1170.