A REGENCY PARCEL-GILT ROSEWOOD CENTRE TABLE

This robust centre table form, in the French/antique manner, was introduced around 1800 by the connoisseur Thomas Hope (d. 1831) and inspired by the work of his friend Charles Percier, whose architectural work was popularised by his Recueil de Décorations Intérieures, 1801. The table's Grecian-black and brass inlay - although rather more restrained than on Hope's own table - recalls the 'Etruscan' style popularised by Baron d'Hancarville's publication of Sir William Hamilton's Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities, Naples, 1766-67.

Hope may well have been assisted by his architect Charles Heathcote Tatham (d. 1842) in the invention of this form of 'round monopodium' table, which was introduced at his Adam-built Duchess Street mansion/museum, which he part furnished in 1801 with a collection of Sir William Hamilton's Grecian vases. In 1804 Hope invited visitors to see his art collections at Duchess Street and published a guide entitled Household Furniture and Interior Decoration Executed from Designs by Thomas Hope, 1807 (pl. 39). The table was also engraved by Henry Moses in service as a card or 'loo' table, but with variations in its inlay, and published in Hope's Designs of Modern Costume, 1812. An enlarged edition of the latter was reissued in 1823 as 'A series of twenty-nine designs of Modern Costume drawn and engraved by Henry Moses, Esq'. Hope's original table may also be that featured, but without the pillar inlay, in a watercolour executed about 1818 of the Small Drawing Room of his Surrey villa, The Deepdene (J. Morley, Regency Design, 1790-1840, London, 1993, p. 226 pl. LV). Hope's table is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.