EARLY 18TH CENTURY

This unusual table, with its idiosyncratic deeply swagged front corner brackets and hipped legs is reminiscent, albeit on a much larger scale and lacking the satyr mask to the centre of the frieze, of the celebrated suite of furniture supplied circa 1710-20 to Edward Parker (d. 1728), or possibly acquired by John Parker (d. 1754) or Thomas Lister Parker (d. 1858) at Browsholme Hall, near Clitheroe, Lancashire. The suite of six side chairs, a pair of stools and a side table, originally silvered, remained at Browsholme until the 1950s and were most recently sold at Christie’s, London, 7 July 2011, lot 23 (£181,250). The Browsholme suite was probably made by James Moore the Elder (1670-1726) whose premises were 'against the Golden bottle' in Shorts Gardens, St. Giles-in-the-Fields and who became cabinet-maker to George I and the Prince and Princess of Wales, later George II. He served leading members of the British aristocracy including the Duke of Chandos and the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, who appointed him Comptroller of Works at Blenheim in 1716 as successor to Sir John Vanbrugh (C. Gilbert [ed.], Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840, Leeds, 1986, pp. 618-9). He is renowned for giltwood furniture and in some instances signed his pieces with an incised MOORE though much of Moore's work can at best be attributed to him. Moore was influenced by contemporary designs from France disseminated through works such as Daniel Marot's Nouveau Livre d'Orfeverie, 1703, which included designs for silver furniture, and by the work of Jean, René and Thomas Pelletier (T. Murdoch, 'Jean, René and Thomas Pelletier, a Huguenot family of carvers and gilders in England 1682-1726 - Part I', The Burlington Magazine, November 1997, p. 738, fig. 11), and William Kent (d. 1748).