A Rare George III Writing Table

Height: 29 ½” 75cm
Width: 24” 61 cm
Depth: 14” 35.5cm
Origination: English
Provenance: Private Collection
Circa: 1755

A charming little table reminiscent of some of the furniture at Dumfries House.  The table is of superbly patinated mahogany having a pull-out slide with original axe head handles and a drawer to the side.  Below are pierced brackets to the top of each leg and a shaped stretcher.

The table is identical in form but with minor variations, including the handle, a moulding to the corner of the legs and a moulded edge, to a table from the Messer Collection thought to have been commissioned by the 4th Earl of Shaftesbury for St Giles’s House.

The square legs are chamfered on the inner edge and joined to the rectangular frame by French Rococo ‘C’ scrolls which relate to a cabinet frame illustrated in Thomas Chippendale, the Gentleman and Cabinet Maker’s Director, 1754, pl. LXXXVI.

Lord Shaftesbury’s first wife, Lady Susannah Noel (d. 1758) was a subscriber to the first edition (1754) of the Director.  A number of the pieces sold from St Giles’s house over the years have born a close enough resemblance to Chippendale designs to suggest Chippendale, along with Hallett, Goodison and Vile & Cobb were supplying furniture to Lord & Lady Shaftesbury.

 

Reference.

The Samuel Messer Sale, Christies, 5/12/1991, Lot 114

£28,000.00