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Lot Essay
The neo-Gothic sideboard table evokes ecclesiastical Gothic architectural forms adapted to furniture popularised by Horace Walpole (d. 1797), antiquarian and collector, and the domestic architecture of his house/museum Strawberry Hill, Middlesex, with its fan-vault ceilings and ogee-arch, trefoil and crocket-finialed furniture. Walpole was not the first to apply Gothic forms to interiors, his predecessors such as William Kent (d. 1748) at Esher Place, and Batty Langley (d. 1751) in his Ancient Architecture Restored (published in 1742 and reissued in 1747 as Gothic Architecture, improved by Rules and Proportions), had demonstrated its possibilities, though Walpole, unfairly but in typical fashion, dismissed their work as 'largely confined to garden accessories’ (W.S. Lewis, 'Horace Walpole, Collector’, Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 3rd series, vol. 92, 1980, p. 47).
The florid 'British' style, as neo-Gothic came to be known, was invented by architect and 'Grosvenor Estate' surveyor, William Porden (d. 1822), assisted by his son-in-law, Joseph Kay. It was soon the height of fashion during the Regency period and was firmly established when Porden remodelled and refurbished the Drawing Room at Robert, 2nd Earl Grosvenor's mansion at Eaton Hall, Cheshire.
In 1813, Ackermann’s Repository was featuring gothic interiors, and in June 1825, reported on 'the prevailing taste for Gothic architecture’, illustrating later that year a 'Gothic Fire Place’, 'Gothic Lamp for a Hall’, ‘Book-case’, and ‘Sofa for a Drawing Room in the Gothic Style’ (P. Agius, Ackermann’s Regency Furniture & Interiors, Marlborough, 1984, plates 149, 151, 153, 156). A design for a 'Side Board’ in the journal exhibits a triad of ogee arches as found on the present sideboard table. Furthermore, in October 1827, the frontispiece to Pugin’s Gothic Furniture also featured an ogee-form frieze on a breakfast table (ibid., plates 156, 157).
The florid 'British' style, as neo-Gothic came to be known, was invented by architect and 'Grosvenor Estate' surveyor, William Porden (d. 1822), assisted by his son-in-law, Joseph Kay. It was soon the height of fashion during the Regency period and was firmly established when Porden remodelled and refurbished the Drawing Room at Robert, 2nd Earl Grosvenor's mansion at Eaton Hall, Cheshire.
In 1813, Ackermann’s Repository was featuring gothic interiors, and in June 1825, reported on 'the prevailing taste for Gothic architecture’, illustrating later that year a 'Gothic Fire Place’, 'Gothic Lamp for a Hall’, ‘Book-case’, and ‘Sofa for a Drawing Room in the Gothic Style’ (P. Agius, Ackermann’s Regency Furniture & Interiors, Marlborough, 1984, plates 149, 151, 153, 156). A design for a 'Side Board’ in the journal exhibits a triad of ogee arches as found on the present sideboard table. Furthermore, in October 1827, the frontispiece to Pugin’s Gothic Furniture also featured an ogee-form frieze on a breakfast table (ibid., plates 156, 157).