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Lot Essay
The distinctive painted 'trompe l'oeil' marble plaquettes would have greatly appealed to English 'Grand Tour' sensibilities. Indeed it was just such a travelling family, the Langford-Brookes of Mere Hall, Lancashire, who not only brought back specimen tops from Italy but commissioned Gillows to supply a 'mahog. cabinet and minerals' decorated in similar fashion, which was recorded in the Library in the 1840 Inventory (sold Christie's Mere Hall house sale, 23 May 1994, lot 238). Their Cheshire neighbours, the Marquesses of Cholmondeley, commissioned similar 'marbleised' furniture from Gillows which is now at Houghton Hall, Norfolk.
A further related pair of small tables from Ham House, Surrey, are illustrated in C. Claxton Stevens and S. Whittington, English Furniture, The Norman Adams Collection, Woodbridge, 1983, p. 348, pls. 32a and 32b. One of the tops is centred by a panel of putti but the other is closer to these, including having a central rectangular panel of a single colour. It has been suggested (ibid., p. 337) that the plain rectangular panel was left because something with a rectangular base, perhaps a candelabrum, was intended to stand on it.
A further related pair of small tables from Ham House, Surrey, are illustrated in C. Claxton Stevens and S. Whittington, English Furniture, The Norman Adams Collection, Woodbridge, 1983, p. 348, pls. 32a and 32b. One of the tops is centred by a panel of putti but the other is closer to these, including having a central rectangular panel of a single colour. It has been suggested (ibid., p. 337) that the plain rectangular panel was left because something with a rectangular base, perhaps a candelabrum, was intended to stand on it.