Important Pair of George II Painted and Parcel-Gilt Card Tables
£34,000
An important pair of George II painted and parcel-gilt card tables or side tables, the serpentine baize-lined tops with delicate leaf-carved borders, the shaped aprons carved with trailing palm-fronds and with rococo scrollwork cartouches at the corners, raised on cabriole legs carved with over-scaled husks, the back legs hinged to support the top when open and with a concealed card/gaming-chip drawer
John Mayhew (1736-1811) and William Ince (?-1804) formed a furniture designing and making partnership in the 1750s based in Hanover Square. Between 1759 and 1762 they serially published the designs which were to make up their Universal System of Household Furniture. One of the designs shows a card table with similar trailing palm-fronds to the frieze flanked by rococo cartouches at the corners, and may have supplied some inspiration for the extremely confident design of the present tables
The cost of painted furniture could be prohibitive. Invoiced in 1774, the drawing room suite at Burton Constable Hall included ‘12 neat Cabreole Armd Chairs Japand blue and white and part Gilt, Stuffd and Coverd with fine Blue mixt damask and brass naild’ at a cost of £50 8s.
The famously fractured relationship between Chippendale and the actor and theatre manager David Garrick (1717-79) began with a dispute over the cost of a suite of green and white-painted seating furniture made between 1768-78 for his home at Hampton in Middlesex. In 1778 Mrs Garrick accused Chippendale of overcharging for the green and white furniture because the cost of painting was twice the price of the original pieces.
