MID-18TH CENTURY

This fine Irish mahogany table, with its profusely carved acanthus scrolls on the knees and squared-off paw feet, relates to a table in the collection at Malahide Castle, Co. Dublin, illustrated in The Knight of Glin, J. Peill, Irish Furniture, New Haven and London, 2007, p. 233, no. 117. Examples of Irish side tables with a naturalistic carved lion’s mask centring the apron rather than an idiosyncratic or fantastical animal mask are infrequent; another such table is featured in Irish Furniture, p. 226, no. 86. Irish tables with a carved Vitruvian scroll are scarcer still and include: a mahogany side table sold Sotheby’s, London, 8 July 1994, lot 70 (£62,000 including premium); a gilt-gesso and giltwood console table sold Christie’s, South Kensington, 23 January 2007, lot 226 (£72,000 inc. prem.), and another, formerly in the collection of Percival Griffiths, is illustrated in R.W. Symonds, English Furniture from Charles II to George II, London, 1929, p. 219, fig. 178.