A GEORGE III MAHOGANY CENTRE TABLE

This 'Chinese' fret-railed table is designed in a fusion of ornamental styles in the 'Modern' taste discussed in Thomas Chippendale's, The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754-1762. Chippendale noted that such 'China Tables' served for 'holding each a Set of China' or else 'may be used as Tea-Tables' (ibid., 3rd ed., 1762, pl. LI). This table's pilaster legs are etched with flowered-trellis within sunk compartments that are framed by fretted and 'gothic' cusp-arched ribbons in the manner of Chippendale's designs for a 'China Case' (1760) and 'China Shelves (1761) (ibid., pls. CXXXVI and CXLIII). The same pattern of bracketed leg features on a 'China Table' that is amongst the furniture that Chippendale is thought to have supplied for Wilton House, Wiltshire (A. Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture, London, 1968, fig. 212).
When sold at Christie's in 2003, this table was part of a small group of furniture (lots 40-45) that was sold anonymously (Property of a Lady), some of which had the provenance of 'Mrs. Alan Morley Wakefield Saunders (née Lothrop), 2 Hyde Park Gardens, London W2 and by descent', and of these some were included in a 1928 inventory of the property. This table was apparently omitted from the inventory, and so was probably a later acquisition by the Wakefield-Saunders family. The daughter of Mr and Mrs Alan Morley Wakefield-Saunders, Margaret Willes (née Wakefield-Saunders, 1915-2005) was the mother-in-law of the late Desmond FitzGerald, 29th Knight of Glin (1937-2011).