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Lot Essay
These card tables in the manner of Thomas Chippendale (d. 1779) are superb examples of high-style furniture of the mid-1760s, demonstrated by the then newly fashionable noclassical straight supports and aesthetically spare decoration. The serpentine top with distinct shaped ears relates to commode tops dated circa 1770 at Goldsborough Hall, and Nostell Priory, Yorkshire (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, p. 127, figs. 226, 227). The star motifs to the frieze are characteristic of Chippendale's work and can be found on a pair of bookcases, and a secretaire bookcase, also featuring similar ebonised mouldings, supplied to the Earl of Pembroke, circa 1760-2, for Pembroke House, London, and now at Wilton House, Salisbury (illustrated ibid., p. 42, fig. 66 and p. 44, fig. 68).
The More, Edwardes and Hope families were familiar with the finest and most fashionable craftsmen and Chippendale’s contemporaries, Mayhew & Ince, supplied furniture to the Edwardes family in August 1774. Furthermore, in the 1740s, Robert More employed the clerk of the King's works at Kensington Palace (from 1715-1754), Henry Joynes, as architect for his new mansion, Linley Hall. In his 1978 family biography, Jasper More, M.P., referred to furniture at Linley Hall, which for circa eighty years had remained in the mansion or was placed in storage in the stable block when the mansion was tenanted (A Tale of Two Houses, Shrewsbury, 1978, pp. 96, 101). The quality, nature and date of these tables suggest that they may have been amongst the original furnishings of the newly rebuilt Palladian Linley Hall completed in the mid-18th century, alternatively it is also possible that they may have been amongst the 'fine Georgian mahogany furniture' recovered from Cleobury North by Sir Jasper More's grandmother, which had come in to the possession of the Mores through marriage from the Mytton family.
The More, Edwardes and Hope families were familiar with the finest and most fashionable craftsmen and Chippendale’s contemporaries, Mayhew & Ince, supplied furniture to the Edwardes family in August 1774. Furthermore, in the 1740s, Robert More employed the clerk of the King's works at Kensington Palace (from 1715-1754), Henry Joynes, as architect for his new mansion, Linley Hall. In his 1978 family biography, Jasper More, M.P., referred to furniture at Linley Hall, which for circa eighty years had remained in the mansion or was placed in storage in the stable block when the mansion was tenanted (A Tale of Two Houses, Shrewsbury, 1978, pp. 96, 101). The quality, nature and date of these tables suggest that they may have been amongst the original furnishings of the newly rebuilt Palladian Linley Hall completed in the mid-18th century, alternatively it is also possible that they may have been amongst the 'fine Georgian mahogany furniture' recovered from Cleobury North by Sir Jasper More's grandmother, which had come in to the possession of the Mores through marriage from the Mytton family.