Lot Essay
This elegant multi-purpose table, with parquetry inlay of Roman tablets and medallions, reflects the 1770s George III French/antique fashion that was later popularised by Messrs A. Hepplewhite & Co.'s Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterers Guide, 1788 (pls. 61 and 60). Related tables, likely to have been supplied for bedroom apartments at Badminton, Gloucestershire and Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire, have been attributed to the Soho firm of Mayhew and Ince (L. Wood, Catalogue of Commodes: The Lady Lever Art Gallery, London, 1994, fig. 218). Related elliptic-fronted table-cases were made in Dublin for William Southwell's piano-keyboards in the late 1780s by their apprentice William Moore (A. Cobbe, Beethooven, 'Haydn and an Irish Genius: William Southwell of Dublin', Irish Arts Review, 1998, pp.71-76), as well as John Wisdom, who supplied a pier table to Thomas Cobbe for the drawing-room at Newbridge House, Co. Dublin on 20 August 1790 for 5.13.9 (J. Peill, 'Heirlooms of Newbridge House', Irish Arts Review, Summer, 2003, pp. 102-103, fig. 12).