CIRCA 1760, AFTER A DESIGN ATTRIBUTED TO THOMAS CHIPPENDALE

These console tables are almost certainly modelled on a design held in the Prints & Drawings department at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (D.831-1906). Although the maker of this design is catalogued as ‘Unknown’ in the descriptive text, it is recorded as ‘by Thomas Chippendale’ (1718-79). The design illustrates Chippendale’s free-flowing artistic style and his use of wash, and while the handwriting is not Chippendale’s as it appears on the Director drawings, the design may well have been inscribed by his workshop. The attribution of the design to Chippendale can now be reinforced by comparing it to another Chippendale design for a pier table in the collection of the Chippendale Society; both designs feature narrow fluting on the frieze and related scrolled legs joined by foliate swags centred by, in the V&A example (and on these tables), a scallop shell, and in the comparable design, a ram’s mask. The Chippendale Society’s design forms part of a portfolio acquired in 2020, which is partially discussed by Adam Bowett in ‘Three drawings by Thomas Chippendale junior’, The Burlington Magazine, August 2020, pp. 674-675. These two Chippendale-attributed designs, and thus the present tables, also relate to two designs for pier tables in an album entitled Original Designs by Matts Lock, Carver 1740-1765 (Prints & Drawings, 2848:101, 2848:120); this album was compiled after Matthias Lock's death in 1765 and includes ephemera from his workshop, designs by Chippendale, and neo-classical designs associated with a later Matthias Lock, probably his son.

A further anonymous design, also at the V&A, is also very close, illustrated in P. Ward-Jackson, English Furniture Designs of the Eighteenth Century, London, 1984, plate 35, although this may be a rendition of a table by William Kent (1685-1748) from the Painted Parlour at Rousham House, Oxfordshire, because of its resemblance (S. Weber, William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain, New Haven and London, 2013, fig. 18.51).

The band of small guilloche moulding found on the legs of the Conran tables is a very common Chippendale motif, seen on the magnificent marquetry library table, made circa 1771 for Harewood House, Yorkshire, on a set of eight, originally japanned, hall chairs, c. 1775, from Nostell Priory Yorkshire, and on a suite of seat-furniture for the salon at Brocket Hall – all Chippendale commissions (C. Gilbert, The Life & Works of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vols. I & II, fig. 442 and 446, pp. 201-2, 215; fig. 157, pp. 172-173; fig. 186, p. 263). While the present tables probably date to the 1760s, the inclusion of the same guilloche moulding was evidently continued by Chippendale junior (1749-1823) featuring on one of three giltwood mirrors made for the saloon at Burton Constable, Yorkshire, in 1778 and on the seat-backs of a set of giltwood chairs at Petworth, West Sussex, c. 1785 (J. Goodison, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale junior, London and New York, 2017, fig. 350, pp. 38, 49, 156; fig. 108, p. 178).

The linked circle motif on the frame appears on a pair of commodes attributed to Chippendale senior, c. 1765-70, now in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight (Gilbert, op. cit., fig. 229, p. 291) and on a pair of white-painted and parcel gilt corner tables by Chippendale junior made for the Music Room at Stourhead, Wiltshire (Goodison, op. cit., fig. 233, p. 220).