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Lot Essay
This magnificent suite of early 20th century silver furniture is almost identical to the historically important and celebrated set of Stuart period silver furniture in the King's Room at Knole, near Sevenoaks in Kent, the home of the Sackville family, Earls of Dorset and now managed by the National Trust. The Knole suite comprising a pier glass, table and a pair of candle stands with tripod feet, each piece hallmarked between 1676 and 1680/1, is related to another set presented by the City of London to Charles II and currently at Windsor Castle. Like the present example, the table at Knole bears the monogram of its owner, in this case, Frances Cranfield, Countess of Dorset, and her second husband, Henry Powle who she married in 1679. The inclusion of such a cypher suggesting that silver encased furniture was limited to pieces made to order. The central ornamentation of the table top represents the musical contest between Pan and Apollo. The table with its broken scroll legs, the broken scroll a motif that developed in Mannerist and Baroque art, is almost certainly the earliest documented example of this form, which became widely used in English furniture from this date.
The fashion for enriching furniture by encasing it with repoussé sheet silver appears to have a Dutch antecedent achieving popularity from the last quarter of the 17th century. The interest in such furniture continued throughout the following century with the antiquarian and man of letters, Horace Walpole, describing the Knole suite as 'a most beautiful Table and glass of wrought silver, very old, and many Jars and Beakrs of the same'. Very few examples of silver furniture of the 17th and 18th centuries exist today because in periods of financial crisis the silver plates were removed and melted down to create bullion. This occurred to the famous silver furniture at Versailles in the later stages of Louis XIV's Flemish campaigns.
There are at least two part suites of silver furniture in the Royal Collection, a table, mirror and stands bearing the cypher of Charles II (RCIN 35298-300) and a silver table and mirror commissioned by William III for Kensington Palace with the arms and motto of the King, and struck with the silversmith's mark for Andrew Moore (RCIN 35301 and 35302) (Ed. Jane Roberts, Royal Treasures A Golden Jubilee Celebration, 2002, pp. 149-151).
The fashion for enriching furniture by encasing it with repoussé sheet silver appears to have a Dutch antecedent achieving popularity from the last quarter of the 17th century. The interest in such furniture continued throughout the following century with the antiquarian and man of letters, Horace Walpole, describing the Knole suite as 'a most beautiful Table and glass of wrought silver, very old, and many Jars and Beakrs of the same'. Very few examples of silver furniture of the 17th and 18th centuries exist today because in periods of financial crisis the silver plates were removed and melted down to create bullion. This occurred to the famous silver furniture at Versailles in the later stages of Louis XIV's Flemish campaigns.
There are at least two part suites of silver furniture in the Royal Collection, a table, mirror and stands bearing the cypher of Charles II (RCIN 35298-300) and a silver table and mirror commissioned by William III for Kensington Palace with the arms and motto of the King, and struck with the silversmith's mark for Andrew Moore (RCIN 35301 and 35302) (Ed. Jane Roberts, Royal Treasures A Golden Jubilee Celebration, 2002, pp. 149-151).