CIRCA 1720, IN THE MANNER OF JAMES MOORE AND JOHN BELCHIER

This pier-table, richly modelled in bas-relief, comprises acanthus flowers framed within a flowered ribbon-scrolled mosaic in the Louis XIV 'antique' manner. It would originally have accompanied a mirror to form a bedroom apartment pier-set such as the silvered gesso table bearing the arms of Meller supplied by John Belchier (d. 1753) in 1723 for Erddig, Wales (R. Edwards and M. Jourdain, Georgian Cabinet-Makers, London, rev. ed., 1955, p. 137, fig. 31). A very closely related table, displaying the same distinctive Gothic-cusped ogee panels to the legs and scallop-shell pendant apron, presumably executed in the same workshop, is likely to have formed part of the furnishings introduced by Harbord Copley (d. 1742) at Gunton Park, Norfolk following his inheritance of the estate in 1710 (sold Irelands, Gunton Park house sale, 16-26 September 1980, lot 1958).

Similar patterned tops feature on a pair of pier-tables at Blair Castle, Scotland (A. Coleridge, 'William Masters and some early 18th Century furniture at Blair Castle, Scotland', The Connoisseur, October 1963, p..78, fig. 2). A virtually identical table was sold Christie's London, 'A Townhouse in Mayfair', 20 November 2008, lot 630 (£34,850).