CIRCA 1770, IN THE MANNER OF JOHN COBB

This elegant serpentine form side table originates from French design sources and can be related to a group of tables of similar form and decoration, many of which feature the same basket weave / trellis pattern top. While its overall form can be found amongst the production of several top cabinet-makers and was probably introduced by the emigré cabinet-maker Pierre Langlois, the group is most commonly attributed to the celebrated Royal cabinet-maker John Cobb (d. 1778) of St. Martin’s Lane. His authorship is based on a comparison with the celebrated suite supplied for Paul Methuen at Corsham Court in 1772. Lucy Wood links a commode in the Leverhulme collection at the Lady Lever Art Gallery to the Corsham suite; both pieces are identified within a much larger opus comprising several furniture forms, but largely commodes and tables (L. Wood, Catalogue of Commodes, London, 1994, no. 7, pp. 97). The Lady Lever commode itself features this basket-weave inlay as well as displaying the arms of Baron Hyde of Hindon, later 1st Earl of Clarendon.
Serpentine ‘basket weave’ tables that compare closely in form and overall ornamentation and are definitively by the same maker include:
* A pair of tables in the Earl of Mansfield’s collection at Scone Palace, originally thought to have come from Kenwood (A. Coleridge, ‘Furniture from the Collection of the Earl of Mansfield, II’, The Connoisseur, May 1966, p;. 16, fig. 24 and C. Streeter, ‘Marquetry tables from Cobb’s workshop’, Furniture History, 1994, pp. 52-53, fig. 30A).
* A slightly smaller pair, advertised by Philip Duncan in June 1971 (The Connoisseur), one of which is illustrated in C. Musgrave, Adam and Hepplewhite Furniture, London, 1966, fig. 165.
To this we can add others nearly identical in form, although lacking the basket weave:
* A single table, with unornamented ground, whose photograph forms part of the R.W. Symonds Collection at the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Wilmington, Delaware (Streeter, op. cit., pl. 30B).
* A very similar side table, possibly the same as the above, with the same undulating outline, use of complimentary veneers, bellflower swag frieze decoration and rose spray to top, attributed to Cobb, was sold anonymously; Sotheby's, London, 30 June 2004, lot 172.
* A table advertised by London dealers Gill and Reigate in 1936, said to have come from the collection of the Marquess of Anglesey and from Knole (ibid.; J. de Serre, ‘An inlaid satinwood table’, Country Life, 5 February 1927, p. 226).
* A pair of games tables sold by Christie’s, London, 14 December 1967, lot 143 (Streeter, op. cit., pl. 28B).
* A table formerly in the collection of Jay P. Altmayer, Palmetto Hall, sold Christie's, New York, 19 January 2017, lot 146 ($17,500).