AN EARLY VICTORIAN MAHOGANY 'JUPE' CIRCULAR EXTENDING DINING-TABLE

In March 1835, Robert Jupe, upholder of 47 Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square, patented a design for 'an improved expanding table so constructed that the sections composing its surface may be caused to diverge from a common centre and that the spaces caused thereby may be filled up by inserting leaves or filling pieces'. The first examples were produced between 1835 and 1840 in partnership with John Johnstone of New Bond Street and were stamped Johnstone, Jupe & Co. London. By 1840 Robert Jupe had left the partnership to form his own firm in Welbeck Street, and his name alone usually appears on later tables with this mechanism.
Several tables stamped Johnstone Jupe & Co. are illustrated in C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840, Leeds, 1996, pp. 283-285, figs. 530-534. Related tables with similar bases sold at auction include: one sold anonymously at Sotheby’s, London 6 June 2006, lot 368 (£88,000 inc. premium); another also with two sets of leaves sold anonymously, Bonham's, London, 9 April 2002, lot 124 (£120,000 inc. premium); an example with carved lion-form feet by Johnstone and Jeanes sold at Sotheby's, London, 22 November 2006, lot 239 (£176,000); another example by Johnstone and Jupe sold at Sotheby's, London, 6 June 2006, lot 368 (£148,000); an example acquired by Sir Hew Hamilton-Dalrymple of North Berwick, 6th Baronet (1814-1887), for the Dining Room at Leuchie House, North Berwick, East Lothian, sold by his descendents at Sotheby's, London, 12 November 2019, lot 24 (£125,000 inc. premium); and most recently, one stamped 'Johnstone, Jupe and Co.' and 'Johnstone & Jeanes', with original leaf case, sold anonymously at Woolley & Wallis, Salisbury, 8 January 2020, lot 405 (£100,000 inc. premium).