An Important English Private Collection
A pair of George II carved mahogany dumbwaiters, mid-18th century
Lot Closed
May 17, 11:30 AM GMT
Estimate
20,000 - 40,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
An Important English Private Collection
A pair of George II carved mahogany dumbwaiters, mid-18th century
each with two circular graduated tiers with turned baluster gallery, the upper tier on a turned fluted stem headed with egg-and-dart and carved with acanthus, the lower tier on a wrythen baluster stem and tripod base, the knees carved with acanthus and bell flower husks, terminating on hairy paw feet, with brass and leather barrel castors
90cm. high, 60cm. diameter; 2ft. 11½in., 1ft. 11¾in.
Phillips London, 22 June 1999, lot 63 (illustrated on the cover)
This superb pair of 'dumb' or 'silent' waiters, with their intricate baluster galleries and crisply carved stems, hails from the Golden Age of English furniture making and would have been deployed near a dining table or in a drawing room for diners to help themselves, unobserved. In a contemporary account from 1784, Mary Hamilton (1756-18) - niece of Lady Emma Hamilton and a famous bluestocking in her own right - notes that at dinner 'we had dumb-waiters so our conversation was not under any restraint by ye Servants being in ye room' (Macquoid P. and Edwards, R., The Dictionary of English Furniture, England, 1954, Vol. II, p. 227.)