English. Circa 1820. Of mahogany and inlaid boxwood. The demi-lune top with cross-banded border and inlaid stringing above a shaped undermould above two shelves edged with boxwood stringing divided by tapering posts inlaid with boxwood panels, edged with stringing and continuing to form four tapering legs, each leg terminating in a square tapering foot.

Probably Brazilian. Circa 1755. Of jacaranda. Each with a shaped pierced back surmounted by a carved rocaille scroll above a shaped splat, the original embossed leather seat depicting a cupid, the seat above the shaped and carved apron, the whole raised on four legs, the front pair of cabriole form terminating in hooved feet, the outswept rear legs, the legs united by a shaped stretcher.

Venice. Signed with Initials T e H R and Dated 1711. The present chairs are bold and over-scale examples of the exuberantly carved and vividly coloured chairs being created in the early part of the eighteenth century to furnish the enchantingly sensuous palazzos of Venice, then "an enchanted city of carnivals, masques, amusement and pretence." The presence to the reverse of the chairs of a date and signature is extremely rare on an early eighteenth century piece of Italian furniture and dates them precisely to 1711. The chairs are an example of the modified form in which the high-backed chair of the renaissance persisted into the eighteenth century, ranged with cabinets and tables against the walls of the grand formal rooms of Italian palazzos. The unusual survival of a design for a chair in the Fondazione Fantoni, Rovetta, illustrates the elaborate form that such chairs attained in Italy.

English. Circa 1810. This magnificent cabinet is a handsome example of furniture employing lacquer decoration made in England at the start of the nineteenth century. The taste for lacquer in the furniture of the regency period remained chiefly confined to the Prince of Wales, later George IV, and his associates who were responsible for fostering its resurgence. The refinement and quality of the present cabinet suggests that it should be understood in the context of this circle of fashionable taste and patronage. The design of the cabinet is close to that of a low bookcase of circa 1808, illustrated in Clifford Musgrave’s Regency Furniture 1800-1830 (figure 1).

English. Circa 1800. The early-nineteenth-century enthusiasm for Chinoiserie among fashionable aristocratic circles reached its apogee in the fantastical interiors of George IV’s opulent exotic palace, Brighton Pavilion. However, the more considered and studied chinoiserie of the present cabinet, dating from around 1800, presages this extravagant affair with the east and places the cabinet in a distinctly eighteenth-century tradition of design and decoration. The highly unusual painted decoration of the present cabinet, which has been remarkably well preserved, draws its inspiration from the rich decorative vocabulary of eighteenth-century chinoiserie, combining these elements in a unique and imaginative way. These decorative themes are accompanied by the subtle eighteenth-century form of the cabinet.

English. First Quarter Of The Nineteenth Century. The present cabinet is a superb example of the early 19th century taste in England for French-inspired furniture of the ancien régime. Led by George IV, the fashion quickly spread through the ranks of the British aristocracy and patrons from the very wealthy merchant class such as William Beckford and George Watson Taylor. Although the low-slung breakfront form of the piece is overtly English, all of the components that make up the cabinet are derived from the French vocabulary of ornament. There were a number of firms in London that specialized in French-inspired furniture, such as Robert Hume, Louis Le Gaigneur and Thomas Parker. Of those three firms, Parker would seem to be the most likely candidate for the cabinets' manufacture. Parker's name is synonymous with English boullework of the extremely high quality that is found on this cabinet.

The Table English. Circa 1785. The Top Probably Rome. Circa 1600. This magnificent 16th-century Roman pietre dure top stands on an important neoclassical giltwood base, almost certain to have been made to a design by Thomas Leverton for the Drawing Room at Woodhall Park, the splendid mansion built in the 1780s for Sir Thomas Rumbold. The tabletop can be compared to a select group of similar pietre dure pieces that date from 1550 to 1620, which includes the Farnese Table, now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, the famed Richelieu table in the Galerie d’Apollon in the Louvre, an octagonal table in the Palazzo Quirinale in Rome, and a rectangular top from Fonthill Abbey. The present top shares a number of defining features with the aforementioned pieces that would suggest Roman manufacture during the second half of the 16th century. The technical virtuosity of the craftsmanship and the complexity of the design are enhanced by the great variety of stones employed.

Spain. First Half Of The Seventeenth Century. The Bases Made For The Tops Circa 1720. These tables belong to an elite group of silver furniture that includes a very similar silver tabletop in the Victoria and Albert museum, a silver mirror in the Wallace collection, and a silver table in the Rijksmuseum. The popularity of valuable and ornate items of silver furniture amongst the nobility in the 16th and 17th centuries originated in Spain and was carried throughout Europe. Furniture made using silver was perhaps the most coveted of decorative art objects in European palaces beginning in the Renaissance. As its popularity became more widespread, a small number of European manufactories in Paris, Hamburg, Copenhagen and particularly Augsburg developed a reputation for the excellence of their craftsmanship in silver; however, the vogue for silver furniture first appeared in Spain in the second half of the 16th century.

Rome. Circa 1770. The present table is strongly related to Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s “free and highly eclectic mode of classical design.” It features a large, striking slab of veneered bianco e nero marble, also known as Grand Antique, which came from the Pyrenees region of France. The present marble top is a superb example of a veneered surface where the craftsman has used a double bookmatch technique, meaning the adjoining surfaces have been cut from the same samples and opened to create a strikingly dramatic double-mirror-image effect. The furniture designs published by Piranesi in his Diverse Maniere d’Adornare i Camini of 1768 reveal the elaborate eclecticism that resulted from his creative adaptation of different stylistic influences in his later work. Piranesi was highly influential as one of the principal forces behind the birth and development of the neoclassical style in Europe.

The Tops Probably Italian. Eighteenth Century. The Bases English. Nineteenth Century. The present pair of tabletops is a fine example of the use of legno silicizzato, or silicified wood, in furniture. These fossils, which usually date from the late Triassic period, were prized for having the strength typical of hardstones, along with the well-preserved and attractive appearance of the plants they originally were. The extremely slow process by which the wood is silicified, replacing the organic cells with minerals over millions of years, results in an opaque or translucent stone with a recognizable grain pattern, in colors ranging from white to shades of brown or green. The unmistakable wood patterns seen in specimens of legno silicizzato undoubtedly contributed to their use in early furniture, for scientific interest as well as for their decorative appeal. One of the most famous examples of a fossilized wood tabletop is found on a guéridon in the collection of Versailles.

The Top And Frieze Section Probably Florentine. Circa 1720. The Base English. Circa 1820. This extraordinary table must rank as one of the most exuberant and flamboyant expressions of the late Regency taste and was almost certainly conceived and made in England in the early years of the 19th century as a vehicle for the display of its superb 18th-century Florentine pietre dure tabletop. The subject matter and character of the present top appear to have no precedent in the study of marble inlay in Italy. The composition of the top closely resembles an engraving by the Flemish-born artist Giovanni Stradano (1523-1605). The table base, which is composed of two entwined dolphins, forms part of a small group of early 19th-century tables with similar bases conceived in an antiquarian taste inspired by the English Palladian movement of the first half of the 18th century, and in particular by the furniture designs of William Kent.

The extremely fine tops to the present tables are geologically interesting, made from lumachella, derived from the Italian word for “snail” (lumaca). The stone is largely composed of marine fossil shells of two kinds, small ovoid gastropods (sea snails) about 1/2-inch long and larger oysters. The latter show up as irregular pale brown fibrous patches or accurate shapes. The slabs have been cut parallel to the natural bedding of the stone and thus represent a section of the sea floor. This stone is a rare sample and its distinctly green ground color suggests that it was mined in Tunisia and is of a type referred to as “lumachella orientale.” The extraordinary bases, with their bold stylized organic legs, united by stretchers bearing tasseled fabric ties, date from around 1700, and have no design precedent in the cannon of Roman baroque furniture. Their highly unusual form would have been well-suited to the extravagance of the Palazzo Colonna where they once stood.

The design of the present tables can confidently be attributed to the celebrated J.C. Lillie (1760-1827), the most prominent furniture designer in Denmark during the late 18th and early 19th century, who was appointed to the newly-created post of Architect and Designer to the Danish Court in November 1790. The form of the present tables is closely related to a console-table, “undoubtedly designed and supplied by Lillie” in 1793 for the “Haunted Room” at the private residence of Liselund. The use of spirals on the legs of tables was a recurrent motif in Lillie’s oeuvre.
The tops of the present tables seem likely to be the work of Giuseppe Canart (d. 1791),4 the Roman craftsman whose known commissions were predominantly in Naples. The composition of the top is similar in that it incorporates specimens, primarily of volcanic stones, inside a complex interlaced framework composed of overlapping and interlocking rings with a black border to the edge.

The present table is an unusual development of the side table as typically found in giltwood examples by, or in the manner of, Robert Adam, who pioneered the English neoclassical movement. Tables with tapered legs, usually six or eight in number are a signature element of Adamesque design. However, the present side table is of exceptionally large scale and the color of the base is of a very unusual hue of bluish-green. The table has very distinctive features within the ornament, for instance the frieze is applied with repeating gilded feather motifs, an interesting variant on the more usual acanthine patterns found on tables in the manner of Adam. The feet are particularly noteworthy, being of spaded circular form and incised with fluting. Linton is a small village and parish in the Maidstone district of Kent. The mansion of Linton Park was built on the hillside by Robert Mann in the 18th century.