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Lot Essay
The tables are designed in the early 19th century `antique’ manner with stepped plinths and winged paw feet, they are embellished with brass inlay and ormolu-mounts in the manner popularized by specialist London `Buhl manufacturers’ such as Thomas Parker of Air Street (from 1808-1817) and Louis Le Gaigneur of Queen Street (from 1814-1821). Although few items of furniture can be definitively ascribed to Le Gaigneur (see M. Levy, `Sincerest Form of Flattery’, Country Life, 15 June 1989, pp. 178-181), the present table displays a similar circular medallion to the table top and the same strapwork-and-flowerhead edge molding as a table attributed to Le Gaigneur and formerly with the London dealers Norman Adams (see C. Claxton Stevens & S. Whittington, 18th Century English Furniture The Noman Adams Collection, Woodbridge, 1983, pp.170-171).
Eridge Park, Sussex, has been the seat of the Nevill family since the middle of the 15th century, and at onetime among the largest deer parks in England. A tudor manor house on the site fell into disrepair and was eventually succeeded by a Regency Gothic-revival 'castle', built by Henry Nevill, 2nd Earl of Abergavenny, over the course of some 40 years between 1790 and 1830. This house was in turn demolished when the 4th Marquess of Abergavenny succeeded his uncle and rebuilt in the 1930s in the Georgian style.
Articles in The Connoisseur magazine, December 1906 and January 1907, show the interior of the castle decorated with Tudor and later portraits and `quantities of carved oak collected from the Continent’ (Hussey, op. cit. p. 819) but images of the 'new' house published in Country Life in 1965 reveal 'much excellent Regency period furniture, chiefly of rosewood with ormolu inlay and trimmings' (ibid., p. 820). Two pairs of these tables were among the Country Life images, one unpublished.
Despite the description of the interiors in The Connoisseur, the later images reveal much Regency furniture of gothic style that would have accorded with the architecture of the early 19th century 'castle', hall chairs with cluster-column legs, armchairs with lancet-shaped openings to the backs and more, liberally emblazoned with heraldic devices or monograms. It seems likely that 2nd Earl would have furnished the house in the fashionable Regency style and since he was still building, or extending, the house in the 1820-30, he might possibly have introduced these tables, and other brass-inlaid furnishings. However the rebuilding of the house after 1937 coincided with a revival of interest in the Regency, spearheaded by Edward Knoblock, Sir Albert Richardson and Lord Gerald Wellesley, later 7th Duke of Wellington, all of whom owned pieces acquired at the 1917 sale of Thomas Hope’s Deepdene and were strong proponents of the style, Wellesley writing on the subject in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 70, no. 410, May 1937, pp. 233-235 and 238-241). It is equally possible some Regency furniture was introduced at this time by the 4th Marquess.
Eridge Park, Sussex, has been the seat of the Nevill family since the middle of the 15th century, and at onetime among the largest deer parks in England. A tudor manor house on the site fell into disrepair and was eventually succeeded by a Regency Gothic-revival 'castle', built by Henry Nevill, 2nd Earl of Abergavenny, over the course of some 40 years between 1790 and 1830. This house was in turn demolished when the 4th Marquess of Abergavenny succeeded his uncle and rebuilt in the 1930s in the Georgian style.
Articles in The Connoisseur magazine, December 1906 and January 1907, show the interior of the castle decorated with Tudor and later portraits and `quantities of carved oak collected from the Continent’ (Hussey, op. cit. p. 819) but images of the 'new' house published in Country Life in 1965 reveal 'much excellent Regency period furniture, chiefly of rosewood with ormolu inlay and trimmings' (ibid., p. 820). Two pairs of these tables were among the Country Life images, one unpublished.
Despite the description of the interiors in The Connoisseur, the later images reveal much Regency furniture of gothic style that would have accorded with the architecture of the early 19th century 'castle', hall chairs with cluster-column legs, armchairs with lancet-shaped openings to the backs and more, liberally emblazoned with heraldic devices or monograms. It seems likely that 2nd Earl would have furnished the house in the fashionable Regency style and since he was still building, or extending, the house in the 1820-30, he might possibly have introduced these tables, and other brass-inlaid furnishings. However the rebuilding of the house after 1937 coincided with a revival of interest in the Regency, spearheaded by Edward Knoblock, Sir Albert Richardson and Lord Gerald Wellesley, later 7th Duke of Wellington, all of whom owned pieces acquired at the 1917 sale of Thomas Hope’s Deepdene and were strong proponents of the style, Wellesley writing on the subject in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 70, no. 410, May 1937, pp. 233-235 and 238-241). It is equally possible some Regency furniture was introduced at this time by the 4th Marquess.