A GEORGE III AMARANTH, MAHOGANY AND FLORAL-MARQUETRY PEMBROKE TABLE

This elegant bedroom-apartment Pembroke table, with taper-hermed legs, is conceived in the George III 'Roman' fashion. Its top, framed in an 'Etruscan' black border, displays parquetried tablets that are rayed from medallions with 'trompe l'oiel' floral inlay that includes sprigs of Venus's sacred rose. A related black-bordered table of the early 1770s, attributed to Thomas Chippendale (d. 1779) was sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 8 February 1996, lot 144, while another with similarly flowered medallions was sold by Mrs. V. H. G. M. Dunkels (+), in these Rooms, 27 June 1969, lot 134. Amongst the most celebrated cabinet-making firms producing this quality of inlay was that of John Cobb (d. 1778) in St. Martin's Lane, whose work is discussed in C. Street, 'Marquetry Tables from Cobb's Workshop', Furniture History, 1974 (pp. 52-53).