拍品专文
This elegant serpentine silver table stands on highly unusual and finely carved foliate-wrapped cluster-column legs. Its overall form compares to a table formerly in the collection of William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham and thence by descent which is illustrated in A Catalogue and Index of Old Furniture and Works of Decorative Art, part II, p.303, as produced by the London dealers M. Harris and Sons in the 1920s. Another with cluster-column legs but pierced 'gothic' elements was sold from the collection of H.J. Joel, Esq., Childwick Bury, Hertfordshire, Christie's London, 15 May 1978, lot 89. Its serpentine form with outset corners, double-scroll stretchers and tapering finial correspond to patterns for 'China Tables' published in Thomas Chippendale's Director, 1762, pl.LI. A further comparable example is shown in situ in the Entrance Hall of Home House, Portman Square (illustrated in Dr. M. Whinney, Home House, No. 20 Portman Square, London, 1969, p.85). The table would have been acquired for the Robert Adam-designed townhouse by the late Samual Courtauld, founder of the Courtauld Institute, who lived there from 1927 to 1932.
The table also recalls the example from Charlton Park, Kent (illustrated in H.A. Tipping, English Homes, period III, vol.I, 1922, p.385) which is now in the Gerstenfeld Collection (E.Lennox-Boyd, ed., Masterpieces of English Furniture: The Gerstenfeld Collection, London, 1998, no.19, p.201 and pl.47).
The table also recalls the example from Charlton Park, Kent (illustrated in H.A. Tipping, English Homes, period III, vol.I, 1922, p.385) which is now in the Gerstenfeld Collection (E.Lennox-Boyd, ed., Masterpieces of English Furniture: The Gerstenfeld Collection, London, 1998, no.19, p.201 and pl.47).