Lot Essay
This pair of oak sideboard-tables, conceived in the George II 'Roman' fashion with marble slabs, may have been commissioned for Kedleston's basement or 'Caesar's Hall' by Sir Nathaniel Curzon, 5th Bt. and later 1st Baron Scarsdale (1726-1804) in the 1750s. Their form of leaf-wrapped columnar legs terminating in 'round toes' had been introduced in the early 18th Century, but the pattern continued to be manufactured into the 1760s (see L. Boynton (ed.), Gillow Furniture Designs 1760-1800, Royston, 1995, fig. 3).
These tables are almost certainly the pair of oak tables listed in 1804 in the Steward's Room (Inventory of the Household Goods and Furniture in Kedleston House belonging to the Rt. Hon. Nath. Lord Scarsdale decd., December 1804, Kedleston Archives).
These tables are almost certainly the pair of oak tables listed in 1804 in the Steward's Room (Inventory of the Household Goods and Furniture in Kedleston House belonging to the Rt. Hon. Nath. Lord Scarsdale decd., December 1804, Kedleston Archives).