18TH CENTURY AND LATER

The giltwood bases of this pair of tables are closely related to a pair of polescreens in 'The First George Room', one of the great state rooms at Burghley House, Lincolnshire (one illustrated V. Leatham, Burghley: The Life of a Great House, London, 1992, p. 165). Although the cabinetmaker responsible is unknown it is possible that this was the partnership of Lawrence Fell and William Turton of Soho, London who had an interest in French decorative art as illustrated in the extravagantly rich carving of the present example. The firm is recorded in the Day Books in the Muniment Room at Burghley from 1773, and when Turton left the partnership in 1781 to be replaced by James Newton between 1788 and 1797 (G. Ellwood, 'James Newton', The Furniture History Society, vol. 31, 1995, p. 12). As one of the preeminent firms on a par with Thomas Chippendale, John Linnell and Mayhew & Ince, Fell and Turton invoiced Brownlow Cecil, 9th Earl of Exeter over £800 in this early period but unfortunately these accounts are not itemised. The partnership's most important commission was undoubtedly for Sir Lawrence Dundas of Moor Park, Hertfordshire, Aske Hall, Yorkshire, and 19 Arlington Street, London from the late 1760s to early 1770s. Lavishly carved and giltwood furniture for Moor Park includes the renowned Tapestry Room suite of seat-furniture, now split between the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Temple Newsam House, Leeds, and a pair of pier tables with giltwood acanthus scroll galleries and aprons from the Gallery, now at Kenwood House, London.