18TH CENTURY AND 1ST CENTURY A.D.

Reputedly found at Hadrian's Villa in Rome and acquired by Hope, circa 1798, both tripod tables were at Duchess Street prior to 1810, and the production of Hope Marbles. In 1824 Westmacott had published a comprehensive account of the interiors of Hope's London residence, and had mentioned an "antique tripod, with chimeras in pavonazzo marble" in the Picture Gallery.

With the construction of the additional rooms at Hope's country house, the Deepdene in Surrey, both tripods had been moved to decorate his new galleries there. In 1826 J. P. Neale published an account of the works at Deepdene, but mentioned only two tripods - one in the Theatre, and another in the Sculpture Gallery. In 1828 however, George Prosser visited various Surrey Country houses, including Deepdene, and mentions three tripod tables on his tour of the house, listing them in the Theatre ("in the centre is a marble tripod, the sacred symbol of the ancients"); the Sculpture Gallery ("a large marble tripod"); and the Conservatory ("in the centre of the pavement stands a handsome marble tripod table"). An 1826 watercolour of the Deepdene sculpture gallery by Penry Williams (see D. Watkin & P. Hewat-Jaboor eds. Thomas Hope Regency Designer, New York and London, 2008, p. 118) shows a plain marble tripod with no feline protomes, so one must assume that the two Schroder tripods are mentioned being placed in the Theatre and Conservatory. From a watercolour illustration of the Conservatory from 1825-1826 (cf. Watkin & Hewat-Jaboor, op. cit., p. 226) the tripod situated in the middle of the room, in front of Thorvaldson's statue of Psyche, is the same design as this Schroder tripod - it has lion paw feet and the feline panther-head protomes emerging from acanthus leaves.

Although polychrome marble was known in the ancient world from Egypt, the Near East and the Hellenistic kingdoms, its use increased beyond measure with the first Roman emperor, Augustus. The quantities and types of marble were unheard of; used on architecture and sculpture, from grand public buildings to domestic settings. Its use quickly spread throughout the empire and played an important role in reflecting Imperial power-play and supremacy. Pavonazzetto (Marmor Phrygium in Latin) is a fine grained marble with purplish veins and inclusions, which historically was imported to Rome from Docimium (located in central Phrygia in Asia Minor). Due to the quarries of this distinctive marble being hundreds of kilometres from navigable waterways, this stone was extremely expensive in antiquity. Despite this, or perhaps as a result, pavonazzetto was particularly fashionable from the 1st Century A.D. onwards. For a very similar pavanazetto trapezophorus, acquired in Rome from Piranesi by Thomas Jenkins circa 1774, for Charles Townley, and now in the British Museum, see inv. no. 1805,0703.454.

Thomas Hope is considered the single-most influential figure in the development of the Regency style. The rooms in his Duchess Street house were used as his showroom - to show off his designs for this new style, interpreted from Greek, Roman and Egyptian art and design. This design for a tripod table in Hope's Household Furniture (plate XV, no. 1) was no doubt inspired by this pavonazzetto tripod table, which is the most similar to the ones we know were in his collection. For a pair of English mahogany tables after this design, thought to have been at Clumber Park, a large house in Nottinghamshire which has now been demolished, and now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no W.35-1946), see. Watkin & Hewat-Jaboor, pp. 390-391, no. 75.