ATTRIBUTED TO MARSH & TATHAM, EARLY 19TH CENTURY

This striking Regency library table with its contrasting mahogany and ebony-inlaid and ebonised timbers together with Greek key frieze, carved lotus leaves, and tapering fluted supports exemplifies the fashionable Graeco-Roman taste. However, the distinctive carved lion masks adorned with Egyptian headdress differentiates this table from other examples cited below. Egyptian ornamentation was in vogue in England after 1806, and followed the publication of Denon’s Voyages dans la Basse et Haute Egypte (1802). Thereafter, Egyptian motifs appeared most notably at Harewood House, Yorkshire, where the entrance hall was fitted up in the Egyptian style, and the Thomas Chippendale the Younger commission at Stourhead in Wiltshire. The table was probably made by Marsh & Tatham, one of the foremost firms in this period, who were part of a group of craftsmen working with Henry Holland and Dominique Daguerre at Woburn Abbey and Southill Park (Bedfordshire), and for the Prince of Wales at Carlton House (ed. G. Beard, C. Gilbert, The Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840, Leeds, 1986, pp. 623-624). Furniture attributed to the designs of Holland and/or made by Marsh & Tatham often feature idiosyncratic ‘botanical’ feet; a set of carved and gilt armchairs and a sofa with lotus leaf feet are at Southill Park (F.J.B. Watson, 'The Furniture and Decoration', Southill: A Regency House, London, 1951, pp. 27, 29, pls. 46, 49). Furthermore, a rosewood centre table and a mahogany writing table at Woburn Abbey, both designs attributed to Holland, feature comparable fluted supports of contrasting timbers (Henry Holland, Woburn Abbey exhibition catalogue, London, 23 April – 7 May 1971, pp. 10, 16, figs. 8, 13). The celebrated ‘Anglesey Desk’, supplied to Lieutenant-General Lord Uxbridge and attributed to Marsh & Tatham (sold Christie’s, London, 8 July 1993, lot 125) also features a comparable Greek-key frieze but in gilt-bronze. Other tables related to the design of the present table but with more conventional gilt metal lion masks are recorded, and include: M. Harris & Sons, A Catalogue and Index of Old Furniture and Works of Decorative Art, London, c. 1930, Part III, p. 406, no. F 20465, from the collection of Lt. Col. S.G. Goldschmidt, Kerfield House, Ollerton, Cheshire; C. Hussey, English Country Houses Late Georgian 1800-1840, London, 1955, p. 228, fig. 439, in the Drawing Room, Scotney Castle, Kent, and more recently, Sotheby’s, New York, 21 October 2004, lot 26; Sotheby’s, New York, 16 April 2005, lot 104.