BY GEORGE SIMSON, LATE 18TH CENTURY

Details

A GEORGE III POLYCHROME-DECORATED CENTRE TABLE
BY GEORGE SIMSON, LATE 18TH CENTURY
The rectangular moulded top centred by a roundel of Venus and Cupid on a red ground enclosed by a border of lilies and interlaced foliage and berries, above a patera and husk-swagged frieze, on square tapering legs, one end incised 'VIII', the decoration original, with printed maker's label 'GEORGE SIMSON, UPHOLDER, Cabinet Maker & Undertaker, No. 19 South Side of St Paul's Church Yard, London'
28½ in. (72.5 cm.) high; 28½ in. (72.5 cm.) wide; 19½ in. (49.5 cm.) deep

Literature

C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture, Leeds, 1996, fig. 847.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

The elegant white japanned table is embellished in Robert Adam's Roman Etruscan fashion in celebration of lyric poetry and appropriate for a bedroom apartment. 'Apollo' sunflowered patera wreath its frieze, which is festooned in beribboned laurels like the herm-tapered legs; while more laurels enwreath its Etruscan-red top, which displays a figurative medallion of 'Venus nurturing Cupid' in the fashion popularised by Angelica Kauffman (d.1810). In the late 1770s Kauffman provided such 'little pictures' to be executed in Matthew Boulton's 'copper' painting technique (see N. Goodison, Matthew Boulton: Ormolu, London, 2002, p.269). The table bears the label adopted in 1787 by the St. Paul's Churchyard cabinet-maker George Simson (d.1840).

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