CIRCA 1815

This sideboard table reflects the French 'antique' style promoted by the connoisseur Thomas Hope (d. 1831) in the furnishing of his Duchess Street mansion museum. The tablet frieze is mounted with an ormolu bas-relief of leopardesses drinking from a fountain and directly corresponds to Hope's design for a cheval-glass cresting illustrated in his Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807, pl. 14 (reproduced here). This bas-relief features on a pair of sideboards thought to have been supplied by Thomas Chippendale the Younger (d.1822) for Harewood House, Yorkshire, circa 1805 (illustrated in C. Musgrave, Regency Furniture, London, 1961, pl. 84) and another sideboard mounted on chimaera supports from Bretton Park, Yorkshire (illustrated in R. Edwards, ed., The Dictionary of English Furniture, rev.edn., Woodbridge, 1954, vol.III, p.132, fig.23).