A George III Mahogany Serving Table Attributed to Wright and Elwick, Circa 1765

Rolleston, London

With its graceful serpentine line, a restrained variant of Hogarth’s much-praised ‘line of beauty’, this table is a typical example of the elegance of so much English furniture produced under George III. Though many characteristic ‘styles’ existed around this period, including the Gothic style, the chinoiserie style and the Adam style, there are a great many fine examples of furniture from the period that do not align themselves so closely with one of these richly decorated, highly distinctive styles. The handsome and decoratively more neutral furniture that results from this approach was (and remains) highly adaptable to a range of interiors and potential placements. The touches of carved detail, chiefly the egg-and-dart patterns to the legs and the foliate-carved spandrels, are often to be observed on the furniture of Wright and Elwick, a Wakefield-based firm that worked on numerous important commissions in Yorkshire such as Wentworth Woodhouse, Nostell Priory and Temple Newsam. In keeping with the neat simplicity of this lot, Wright and Elwick were known to be critical of the sumptuous or richly-decorated furniture produced by the London furniture makers: Elwick criticised the furniture at Brancepeth Castle in County Durham, for example, by describing it as “Inlaid Expensive work sent from London — but badly Designed the Taste Vulgar & Clumsy”.¹ A serving table in the manner of Wright and Elwick with very similar spandrels and egg-and-dart carving sold at Sotheby’s London, 26 October 2016, lot 1128. These typical decorative features can also be observed on chairs attributed to Wright and Elwick, such as those sold at Christie’s New York, 27 January 2022, lot 230, Sotheby’s London, 17 November 2010, lot 152, Christie’s London, 15 April 1999, lot 65 and Christie's, Swinton House, Masham, Yorkshire, 20-21 October 1975, lot 17. 

¹ Geoffrey Beard and Christopher Gilbert, Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660–1840, Leeds, 1986, p.1007.