Lot Essay
The pair of magnificent golden pier-tables are likely to have been commissioned by Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham (d. 1749) for Stowe, Buckinghamshire in the 1740s, and can be attributed to Benjamin Goodison (d. 1767) of the 'Golden Spread Eagle', Long Acre, celebrated cabinet-maker to King George II. They would have formed part of the sumptuous furnishings of the Viscount's palatial mansion, described by George Bickham as a 'faire majestic paradise' in his Beauties of Stowe, 1750. He admired the 'Apartments and Furniture of this costly Fabric' and its 'Gilded carvings, glasses and sconces, without Number;... elegant Tables, rich hangings and tapestry, gilded furniture'; and described the latter as being in 'the modern and most superb taste'.
In place of marble slabs, generally found on dining-room sideboard-tables, these have gilt-gessoed tops, whose arabesque ornament would have harmonised with Stowe's richly painted drawing-room ceiling. Alluding to Apollo's role in antiquity as leader of the Muses of artistic inspiration on Mt. Parnassus, these bas-relief tops depict his sunflower badge within octagon compartments. They are entwined by foliated and volute-scrolled ribbons in the Franco/Roman manner popularised at the beginning of the Century by Daniel Marot's Oeuvres, 1712; and relate in particular to a Roman mosaic pattern for a 'pavement or table...according to the Ancients' that the architectural publishers Thomas and Batty Langley issued in their City and Country Builder's and Workman's Treasury of Designs, 1740 (pl. CXLVII). Other motifs such as the Venus-shell badges and branches of Jupiter's sacred oak issuing from Roman foliage, also relate to Messrs. Langley's goldsmith's ornament in the Berainesque manner. Indeed the source for the design of their richly-carved frames derives from the Langley's 'Apollo' table-frame pattern displaying the sun-deity's glory-rayed mask tied by a flowered-trellis ribbon (Langley, ibid., pl. CXLVII). The Langley frame in turn derives from an Apollo-masked, griffin-guarded and shell-enriched 'sarcophagus' chest invented by Jean Berain (d. 1711), Dessinateur de la Chambre et du Cabinet du Roi to Louis XIV. Like the Langleys' pattern, the frames of these tables are embellished with foliated cartouches tied at the centres and the corners, while the serpentined legs are flowered with garlands that are held by festive ring-tamed bacchic lion-masks and terminate in lion-paws.
THE HISTORY OF THE 'APOLLO' SUITE
The pair of tables originally formed part of a large suite, including a set of golden seat-furniture comprising at least four stools, eight chairs and four settees, that were probably dispersed by the early 19th Century. Although the Stowe provenance had always been propagated by such eminent furniture historians as Herbert Cescinsky, H.H. Mulliner and R.W. Symonds, it has more recently been questioned by William Rieder in his article in the Furniture History Society Journal. Although, as Mr. Rieder rightly points out, there is no apparent documentation for the suite at Stowe before Christie's celebrated thirty-seven day sale held for Richard Grenville, second Duke of Buckingham and Chandos on the premises at Stowe in August 1848, one of the double-chair back settees from the suite can almost certainly be identified with lot 242, described as 'An ancient state settee, the frame and back very richly carved, with lion's masks, and gilt, and the seat covered with crimson velvet, and two cushions, covered with cloth of gold'. This identification is strengthened by the fact that lot 1338 features a set of four chairs, which were similarly described and likewise upholstered in crimson velvet, additionally noted here as being of Utrecht manufacture. Acquired by 'Lord Ward' (Lord William Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley), who was listed as being their purchaser for £48.6.0. in H.R. Forster's The Stowe Catalogue Priced and Annotated, 1849, they were subsequently sold by his direct descendant, The Earl of Dudley at Sotheby's London 1964 and 1965 (see two chairs sold anonymously, Sotheby's London, 4 July 1997, lot 32). Intriguingly a pair of chairs, similarly described but with upholstered rather than carved backs, and with damask rather than velvet upholstery, featured in the previous entry lot 1337, but only sold for £5.5.0, under a quarter of the price per pair. Forster's annotation for lot 1337 was accompanied by a new footnote: 'These chairs are very beautiful. The set of six comprised in this and the following lot were presented to the Duke of Buckingham by Mr. W. Selby Lowndes. This pair was disposed of by Mr. Emanuel [of Town and Emanuel], after the sale, to Mr. Thompson, of Liverpool'. Since 1921, when the tables were sold by Col. W. Selby Lowndes, it has also been possible to identify W. Selby Lowndes, Esq. (d. 1842), M.P. for Buckinghamshire (1807-1820), as the earliest documented owner of this pair of tables, as well as of a pair of the stools from this suite. A neighbour of the Duke of Buckingham, Selby Lowndes had rebuilt his house at Whaddon Hall, Buckinghamshire around 1820, so it is certainly possible that he acquired some of the furnishings from Stowe before the 1848 sale for this house. Although Forster may have possibly been misled by information clearly supplied by Emanuel, the fact he suggests that the four chairs (lot 1338, conclusively from this suite) were presented to Buckingham by W. Selby Lowndes, would if anything reinforce the suggestion that the suite originally came from Stowe.
A suite of this grandeur and magnificence is undoubtedly out of proportion with the scale of Whaddon Hall, the Lowndes' seat in Buckinghamshire, which was erected possibly to designs by Sir Christopher Wren between 1699-1702 for William Lowndes, Secretary of the Treasury.
It would have harmonised perfectly, however, with the grand furnishings that Richard Temple, later Viscount Cobham introduced to Stowe during King George I's reign through the Court cabinet-maker James Moore (d. 1726) (such as the table now at the Victoria and Albert Museum and its pair sold by the Exectors of the late Mrs. J.H. Dent-Brocklehurst, in these Rooms, 4 July 1991, lot 104). Indeed Goodison, who trained under Moore, succeeded to the latter's post as 'Purveyor' to King George I's Palaces and featured regularly in the Royal 'Great Wardrobe' accounts during the following reign.
The majority of the suite is now in the Royal Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, at Windsor Castle, with an additional settee and stool in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and a pair of stools in a private English Collection.
In place of marble slabs, generally found on dining-room sideboard-tables, these have gilt-gessoed tops, whose arabesque ornament would have harmonised with Stowe's richly painted drawing-room ceiling. Alluding to Apollo's role in antiquity as leader of the Muses of artistic inspiration on Mt. Parnassus, these bas-relief tops depict his sunflower badge within octagon compartments. They are entwined by foliated and volute-scrolled ribbons in the Franco/Roman manner popularised at the beginning of the Century by Daniel Marot's Oeuvres, 1712; and relate in particular to a Roman mosaic pattern for a 'pavement or table...according to the Ancients' that the architectural publishers Thomas and Batty Langley issued in their City and Country Builder's and Workman's Treasury of Designs, 1740 (pl. CXLVII). Other motifs such as the Venus-shell badges and branches of Jupiter's sacred oak issuing from Roman foliage, also relate to Messrs. Langley's goldsmith's ornament in the Berainesque manner. Indeed the source for the design of their richly-carved frames derives from the Langley's 'Apollo' table-frame pattern displaying the sun-deity's glory-rayed mask tied by a flowered-trellis ribbon (Langley, ibid., pl. CXLVII). The Langley frame in turn derives from an Apollo-masked, griffin-guarded and shell-enriched 'sarcophagus' chest invented by Jean Berain (d. 1711), Dessinateur de la Chambre et du Cabinet du Roi to Louis XIV. Like the Langleys' pattern, the frames of these tables are embellished with foliated cartouches tied at the centres and the corners, while the serpentined legs are flowered with garlands that are held by festive ring-tamed bacchic lion-masks and terminate in lion-paws.
THE HISTORY OF THE 'APOLLO' SUITE
The pair of tables originally formed part of a large suite, including a set of golden seat-furniture comprising at least four stools, eight chairs and four settees, that were probably dispersed by the early 19th Century. Although the Stowe provenance had always been propagated by such eminent furniture historians as Herbert Cescinsky, H.H. Mulliner and R.W. Symonds, it has more recently been questioned by William Rieder in his article in the Furniture History Society Journal. Although, as Mr. Rieder rightly points out, there is no apparent documentation for the suite at Stowe before Christie's celebrated thirty-seven day sale held for Richard Grenville, second Duke of Buckingham and Chandos on the premises at Stowe in August 1848, one of the double-chair back settees from the suite can almost certainly be identified with lot 242, described as 'An ancient state settee, the frame and back very richly carved, with lion's masks, and gilt, and the seat covered with crimson velvet, and two cushions, covered with cloth of gold'. This identification is strengthened by the fact that lot 1338 features a set of four chairs, which were similarly described and likewise upholstered in crimson velvet, additionally noted here as being of Utrecht manufacture. Acquired by 'Lord Ward' (Lord William Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley), who was listed as being their purchaser for £48.6.0. in H.R. Forster's The Stowe Catalogue Priced and Annotated, 1849, they were subsequently sold by his direct descendant, The Earl of Dudley at Sotheby's London 1964 and 1965 (see two chairs sold anonymously, Sotheby's London, 4 July 1997, lot 32). Intriguingly a pair of chairs, similarly described but with upholstered rather than carved backs, and with damask rather than velvet upholstery, featured in the previous entry lot 1337, but only sold for £5.5.0, under a quarter of the price per pair. Forster's annotation for lot 1337 was accompanied by a new footnote: 'These chairs are very beautiful. The set of six comprised in this and the following lot were presented to the Duke of Buckingham by Mr. W. Selby Lowndes. This pair was disposed of by Mr. Emanuel [of Town and Emanuel], after the sale, to Mr. Thompson, of Liverpool'. Since 1921, when the tables were sold by Col. W. Selby Lowndes, it has also been possible to identify W. Selby Lowndes, Esq. (d. 1842), M.P. for Buckinghamshire (1807-1820), as the earliest documented owner of this pair of tables, as well as of a pair of the stools from this suite. A neighbour of the Duke of Buckingham, Selby Lowndes had rebuilt his house at Whaddon Hall, Buckinghamshire around 1820, so it is certainly possible that he acquired some of the furnishings from Stowe before the 1848 sale for this house. Although Forster may have possibly been misled by information clearly supplied by Emanuel, the fact he suggests that the four chairs (lot 1338, conclusively from this suite) were presented to Buckingham by W. Selby Lowndes, would if anything reinforce the suggestion that the suite originally came from Stowe.
A suite of this grandeur and magnificence is undoubtedly out of proportion with the scale of Whaddon Hall, the Lowndes' seat in Buckinghamshire, which was erected possibly to designs by Sir Christopher Wren between 1699-1702 for William Lowndes, Secretary of the Treasury.
It would have harmonised perfectly, however, with the grand furnishings that Richard Temple, later Viscount Cobham introduced to Stowe during King George I's reign through the Court cabinet-maker James Moore (d. 1726) (such as the table now at the Victoria and Albert Museum and its pair sold by the Exectors of the late Mrs. J.H. Dent-Brocklehurst, in these Rooms, 4 July 1991, lot 104). Indeed Goodison, who trained under Moore, succeeded to the latter's post as 'Purveyor' to King George I's Palaces and featured regularly in the Royal 'Great Wardrobe' accounts during the following reign.
The majority of the suite is now in the Royal Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, at Windsor Castle, with an additional settee and stool in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and a pair of stools in a private English Collection.