CIRCA 1750

This table displays a number of features that distinguish Irish furniture from English counterparts. In this case the table's frieze is centred by an eagle adopting the same pose with wings spread as displayed on side tables probably supplied in the 1750s to Windham Quin of Adare, Co. Limerick (d. 1789) and to the 10th Viscount Gormanston of Co. Meath (d. 1757; The Knight of Glin and James Peill, Irish Furniture, New Haven and London, 2007, pp. 232, nos. 110 and 111), and also on the crests of writing-cabinets (themselves peculiarly Irish) such as was supplied to Sir Richard St George, 1st Bt., of Co. Kilkenny (d. 1762; ibid., p. 75, fig. 90). The frieze also features upright scallop shells similar to those on a table now in the collection of the City Art Museum of St. Louis, Missouri and another in a private collection (ibid., p. 224, no. 75 and p. 74, fig. 89), the pair to the latter now at Temple Newsam, Yorkshire. The frieze is edged with strapwork that is itself wrapped by dense acanthus foliage. Within the contours of the carving are traces of black varnish seen often on Irish furniture. Analysis and anecdotal evidence indicates that this was the result of 19th and 20th century interventions, possibly influenced by the fashion for Elizabethan and Jacobean furniture and architecture, and that the underlying original colour was a rich red-brown such as that that distinguishes the table offered here.