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Lot Essay
This pier-table-commode, intended to accompany a mirror in a bedroom-apartment window-pier, is conceived in the George III 'Roman' fashion promoted by the court architect Robert Adam (d.1792). Its top has projecting 'tablet' or 'architectural' cut-corners, while its frame is embellished with 'Apollo' sunflowered paterae and antique-flutes in the manner of a Roman tripod. More paterae embellish the angles of its stepped plinth, and reed framed drawers of finely-figured mahogany are enriched with ormolu handles in the French 'picturesque' fashion.
The use of ebonised borders is a recurrent feature of Mayhew and Ince's work, and appears on a related commode confidently attributed to them, sold by E.R. Hanbury, Esq., Burley-on-the-Hill, Rutland, in these Rooms, 6 July 1989, lot 147. This was almost certainly supplied to George Finch, 4th Earl of Nottingham and 9th Earl of Winchilsea (1752-1826) for Burley-on-the-Hill. In the winter of 1774 he wrote to his mother: 'I have got a number of things from Mayhew. I am sure the house will soon have a more furnished look' (C. Hussey, 'Burley-on-the-Hill', Country Life, 17 February 1923, p. 217).
The Burley commode provides the basis for a number of attributions of related commodes with rounded fluted angles headed by paterae, such as a commode sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 4 July 1996, lot 389 and another sold Sotheby's London, 4 July 1997. Parallels can be drawn between this feature and the canted fluted and patera-headed angles of the present lot.
These handles, with escutcheon-plates of fretted ribbon-scrolls wrapped by Roman acanthus, were adoped in the early 1760s by leading cabinet-makers such as Thomas Chippendale of St. Martin's Lane (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1987, vol. II, figs. 226 and 270).
The use of ebonised borders is a recurrent feature of Mayhew and Ince's work, and appears on a related commode confidently attributed to them, sold by E.R. Hanbury, Esq., Burley-on-the-Hill, Rutland, in these Rooms, 6 July 1989, lot 147. This was almost certainly supplied to George Finch, 4th Earl of Nottingham and 9th Earl of Winchilsea (1752-1826) for Burley-on-the-Hill. In the winter of 1774 he wrote to his mother: 'I have got a number of things from Mayhew. I am sure the house will soon have a more furnished look' (C. Hussey, 'Burley-on-the-Hill', Country Life, 17 February 1923, p. 217).
The Burley commode provides the basis for a number of attributions of related commodes with rounded fluted angles headed by paterae, such as a commode sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 4 July 1996, lot 389 and another sold Sotheby's London, 4 July 1997. Parallels can be drawn between this feature and the canted fluted and patera-headed angles of the present lot.
These handles, with escutcheon-plates of fretted ribbon-scrolls wrapped by Roman acanthus, were adoped in the early 1760s by leading cabinet-makers such as Thomas Chippendale of St. Martin's Lane (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1987, vol. II, figs. 226 and 270).