A Fine and Important Regency Pollard Oak and Ebony Centre Table Relating to Designs by Thomas Hope

A Fine and Important Regency Pollard Oak and Ebony Centre Table Relating to Designs by Thomas Hope, this large centre table is veneered in pollard oak with applied solid ebony mouldings and with ebony inlay to the table top. It stands on a tapering triangular column and a concave-sided tripartite platform base, with further solid ebony enrichment. The massive carved paw feet are ebonised and of exceptional quality.

Dimensions: Height 29 inches or 74 cm Diameter 56 inches or 143cm

This outstanding table relates to a design in plate 39 of Thomas Hope’s Household Furniture and Interior Decorationwhich is reproduced below. Two tables corresponding exactly to that design were made for Hope either at Deepdene in Surrey, from whence they were later sold, or for his Duchess Street town house in London. Hope was exacting in his standards and expected those who executed his designs to be equally fastidious. Frustratingly, however, although we know that he entrusted his bronze and ormolu work to Alexis Decaix, he did not leave similar clues relating to the makers of his furniture and, as such, even the furniture made for Hope himself is undocumented in this regard. One of the tables made for Hope is now in the V&A and can be seen online here and the museum notes that the quality of construction is such that a London maker is highly likely.

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O48867/table-hope-thomas/

Our table, though lacking the highly detailed marquetry from the Hope design, also has a number of features which suggest a top London maker and, in all likelihood, the same workshop as produced the Hope examples. Most importantly and interestingly, the mouldings on our table are executed in ebony rather than being ebonised. Only the large paw feet, of the black elements seen throughout the piece, are ebonised. This is very unusual and implies a commission where cost was no object and a very skilled maker able to deal with the use of such exotic timbers in large quantities as this is a large table and plenty of ebony was required to make all of the different mouldings. Ebony is also used to inlay the top with concentric rings of varying thicknesses.

The table is executed primarily in pollard oak and, as a native English timber, the fashion for the use of this material was extremely pronounced during the regency period when a new wave of patriotism seemed to take hold, presumably in response to the Napoleonic Wars. Makers such as George Bullock are associated with this fashion, as well as the use of ebony inlay, but this table does not seem likely to have come from his workshop. Clues to the origin of the piece may instead come from another table in our current collection, this exceptional oak library drum table:

https://wickantiques.co.uk/product/an-important-regency-period-library-table-made-after-designs-by-thomas-hope/

That table, also clearly relating to the Hope design, corresponds incredibly closely to tables from Beechwood Park and Malahide and it has been suggested that the Beechwood table was probably supplied by Marsh and Tatham around c.1810 when the library there was remodelled in the regency style.

On the basis of the clear design similarities between the two pieces that we own, it seems that an attribution to Marsh and Tatham for the present table is also justified.

This table has an exceptional colour and patination, as would be expected from a piece that passed through the hands of Michael Hughes Ltd, one of the finest dealers in antique furniture in London.

Provenance  

Acquired from Michael Hughes Ltd, Fulham Road, London, for a private Somerset collection for £38,000