Property of a Lady
An Anglo-Flemish cream-painted marble-topped side table, predominantly 17th century and later
Lot Closed
January 17, 02:41 PM GMT
Estimate
15,000 - 25,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
with a speckled marble top, on a moulded frieze supported by six term supports of maidens with one arm raised and tasseled cushions on their heads, the four front-facing figures with cloths and the two central figures with interlocking hands, the lower halves of the supports with foliate and bell-flower carving, on bases centred by rosettes and joined by guilloche-carved stretchers, re-painted with a painting analysis available on request
height without top: 104cm high, 160cm wide, 53cm deep
This lot will be on view in our New Bond Street galleries on 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 15th, 16th and 17th January 2024.
By repute Stoke Bruerne Park, Northamptonshire;
Acquired by Bingham Wilson, Shenley Park House, Buckingham, circa 1950;
Sotheby's London, 30th November 2001, lot 47.
The present table is understood to have been acquired from Stoke Bruerne Park in the 1950s, when the house was visited by Country Life and described as being in a state almost "past preserving" (Arthur Oswald, "Stoke Park, Northamptonshire: The Inigo Jones Pavilions, Country Life, 23 July 1953, Pp.280-3). The house (now demolished) with its flanking pavilions was constructed in around 1630 on land granted by Charles I to Sir Frances Crane and is thought to have been completed by 1636, when an entertainment was held there before the King and Queen. Bridges, in his History of Northamptonshire written from material collected in the early 18th century, notes that Sir Francis Crane "brought the design from Italy, and in the execution of it received the assistance of Inigo Jones," an attribution reinstated by Oswald and most recently supported by Harris and Higgott John Harris and Gordon Higgot., Inigo Jones: Complete Architectural Drawings, 1989, p.302).
Sir Francis Crane was a prominent courtier at the Court of Charles I, acting as both Secretary to the King and later as his ambassador to the French Court. In 1623, he founded the Mortlake Tapestry works with financial help from the King and the Duke of Buckingham. He is best remembered in furniture history through his patronage of Francis Cleyne, who designed the gilt and white-painted panelling and furniture for the Gilt Room at Holland House. Interestingly, according to Horace Walpole, Cleyne was responsible for the decoration of Stoke Bruerne (Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England, 1871).
Associating the present 17th century caryatids with the circle of Inigo Jones assumes that they can be dated to the 1630s or 40s. Whilst they share many similarities with Flemish work during the late 17th century, their simplicity in comparison with work of the low countries both places their manufacture in England and suggests an earlier epoch. It is consequently worth noting evidence that Nicholas Stone worked on Stoke Bruerne during its original construction suggested by a carvers mark there which is similar to one by Stone recorded at Kirby Hall. Furthermore although chiefly thought of as a mason, he (and his Long Acre workshop) divided their work equally between wood and stone.
Related designs for furniture including figural groupings were printed by the German engraver and cabinet-maker Friedrich Untentsch in around 1640, one of which shows a figure assuming a parallel arm-akimbo pose. Another shows engaged herm figures demonstrating the same solution to combining a figurative upper body with faux-masonry through a clearly distinguished skirt-like motif (Simon Jervis, Printed Furniture Designs before 1650, 1974, pls.393 and 419). This form remained popular for several decades and is repeated in a drawing for a cabinet stand by Pierre Gole of 1660-3 (Th. I. Lunsingh Scheurleer, 'Pierre Gole, ébéniste du roi Louis XIV' Burlington Magazine, June 1980, p.380, fig.2).