CIRCA 1760

J. S. Sykes was a pioneering collector of 18th Century English furniture, part of a select group of aficionados including Percival Griffiths, Samuel Messer, Eric Moller, Geoffrey Blackwell and Lord Plender, all advised by the celebrated connoisseur and scholar R. W. Symonds, whose collection and reference library now forms part of the Winterthur Museum. Several pieces from the great collection formed by J. S. Sykes are featured in R. W. Symonds' seminal book (London, 1940), Masterpieces of English Furniture and Clocks, in which he described the Sykes collection as 'outstanding'. A closely related table, possibly from the same workshop and in the collection of Lord Plender, is illustrated by Symonds on p. 29, figs. 19 and 20.