A GEORGE III TULIPWOOD-CROSSBANDED SATINWOOD, SATINBIRCH AND MARQUETRY PEMBROKE TABLE

This table top, formed as a 'Roman-medallion' with taper-hermed legs, is designed in the George III 'antique' fashion introduced in the 1770s and later popularised by Messrs A. Hepplewhite & Co.'s Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, 1788. The inlaid top's sunflowered and scallop-rayed medallion is festooned with strings of bell-flowers and palms, whilst its legs are capped by sacred urns, in keeping with the Roman 'Etruscan' or 'Columbarium' fashion celebrated by the Adams' Works in Architecture, 1774; while the trailing flowers on the frieze relate to the Roman fashion introduced to Dublin by William Moore, who had trained in London in the 1770s with Messrs. Ince and Mayhew.
 
This table is reputed to have been commissioned by Alexander Monro of Auchinbowie, Scotland, and was originally supplied en suite with a pair of demi-lune card-tables (the card-tables sold from the Monro collection, Christie's, London, 4 April 1974, lot 82 and again at Christie's, London, 21 April 2005, lot 463, £38,400).  A Pembroke table, inlaid with related ornament, is among furniture thought to have been acquired in the 1770s from the Marlborough cabinet-maker Henry Hill (d. 1778; L. Wood, Catalogue of Commodes, London, 1994, p. 67, fig. 47).