A GEORGE IV BRASS-INLAID AND MOUNTED ROSEWOOD CIRCULAR CENTRE TABLE

The Drawing Room table, like the preceeding bergere chairs (lot 92), was commissioned for the St. James's Square mansion of Frederick William Hervey, 5th Earl of Bristol, later 1st Marquess (d. 1859); and likely to have been designed around 1821 by the Pall Mall court cabinet-makers Messrs. Thomas Banting and William France in the George IV French antique fashion popularised by R. Ackermann's, Repository of Arts, 1809-1828. Executed in Grecian-black figured rosewood, the circular 'loo' table's palm-flowered 'urn' pillar is raised on an altar-tripod plinth that is boulle-inlaid, in Louis Quatorze manner, with golden palm-flowered tablets. The table together with other London furnishings was later moved to Ickworth, Suffolk , where some remains in situ (see G. Jackson-Stops, Ickworth, 1994 p.19 ).