A finely carved walnut side table in the George II style by the Harry Meyers Company of New York and Chicago

A finely carved walnut side table in the George II style by the Harry Meyers Company of New York and Chicago, the rectangular top with eight book-matched veneers above a concave frieze centred on a scallop shell nestling within another, the scrolling cabriole legs richly carved with shells against nautilus and rosette scrolls on the knees and shaped panels on the legs.  American, circa 1931. 

Published: Almost certainly the table advertised by Harry Meyer and Co in Arts and Decoration magazine, February 1931

This fine side table has been executed in the virtuosic George II late rococo style and has some affinities with the work of the likes of Paul Saunders of Soho who produced similar pieces for such important houses as Petworth, Hornby Castle and Grimsthorpe Castle amongst many others.  The table consists of a wonderfully quarter veneered walnut top, resting on a plain apron which is centred by a beautifully executed scallop shell motif between two cornucopias.  Beneath the frieze are more examples of rocaille carving with scrollwork and floral details.  The legs have shell knees and more floral detailing and the very distinctive treatment of the lower legs, with fielded reserves and scroll feet, is very much in the Saunders style.

This piece certainly dates from around 1931 thanks to an advert placed in Arts and Decoration magazine by the Harry Meyers Company in the February 1931 issue.  This advert features an identical table, almost certainly the present piece, and is illustrated here.

Harry Meyers and Company: Founded around the turn of the 20^th century, a New York Times feature on the rising price of rents in Midtown, published in 1936, stated that one of the firms affected by these rent rises was ‘Harry Meyers Company, a furniture-making firm which has been in West Fifty-second Street for more than twenty years’.  The firm seems to have operated along the lines of the great decorating and antique dealing businesses of London such as White Allom and Lenygon and Morant. In the February 1931 advert which features our table, the firm stated that they were ‘Manufacturers of furniture; Importers of antiques’ and had premises at 136 West 52^nd Street New York and 820 Tower Court in Chicago.  The firm is known to have made and supplied furniture to countless important American commissions, including a number connected to the great Bauhaus architect Marcel Breuer, the papers relating to these commissions including the furniture lists surviving in some cases.