A NEW ZEALAND SPECIMEN NATIVE WOOD PARQUETRY OCCASIONAL TABLE

This parquetry table top is typical of the work of Anton Seuffert (1815-87), a Bohemain-born cabinet-maker who settled in Auckland in 1859. Seuffert was famed for his use of New Zealand timbers, and his best-known piece, now in The Royal Collection, is a marquetry secretaire consisting of 30,000 pieces of New Zealand timbers, exhibited at the South Kensington International Exhibition of 1862 (J. Marsden and R. Thompson, 'A New Zealand Masterpiece: A marquetry secretaire by Anton Seuffert', Furniture History, Vol. XLII, 2006, p.183). An almost identical parquetry tripod table, with label was sold Sotheby's, London, 6 December 2011, lot 145 (£17,500, including premium).

Marquetry 'card tables' such as this are among the most frequently encountered items from the Seuffert workshop, seemingly intended for the depositing of business or postal cards. They represent the one genre of Seuffert's work in which exact replicas of the marquetry-work appear in a number of examples, and a table with the same central strapwork marquetry pattern is illustrated in Brian Peet, The Seuffert Legacy, Auckland, 2008, p.114.