A George II Marble Topped Console Table

The ‘deal’ frame with painted surface, with canted corners, carved egg and dart support on Vitruvian scroll frieze, with heavily and robustly carved scrolling legs, with deeply carved acanthus leaf, on hairy paw feet. With exceptionally figured modern Medicae Violetta marble top.

Comparable;
An illustration in Country Life Magazine (27th of September 1924, image included) showing the contents of Wentworth Woodhouse, provides a most interesting comparative table. The table at Wentworth Woodhouse does not have a shaped frame and top, but the treatment of the legs and paw feet is virtually identical to this piece, as is the very fine quality of carving and refined proportions, and the Vitruvian scroll and egg and dart mouldings are also both present. The contents of Wentworth Woodhouse were dispersed in a series of landmark auctions, and pieces from the house are in many important museum and private collections. It is possible that the table was was also part of the furnishing scheme at the house – although it is well known that large parts of the property were not properly photographed and recorded before the contents were sold; at the very least, it is highly likely that our table was made by the same firm that produced the example at Wentworth Woodhouse, and is likely that this table was produced using designs taken from William Kent and, given the close relationship between Kent and Benjamin Goodison and the obvious quality of this piece, it is also possible to attribute this table to the Goodison workshop.

Other Kentian examples can be found in Simon Yates’ ‘An Encyclopaedia of Tables’, p.31 illustration no 28., and a pair of tables with extremely similar Vitruvian scroll mouldings, similar treatment of the legs and, importantly, the paw feet which are very unusual features on tables of this design (again believed to have been made after Kent’s designs) in Seaton Delaval Hall in Northumberland, now owned by the National Trust.

Height: 86 cm, 33 7/8″
Width: 145 cm, 57 1/8″
Depth: 70 cm, 27 1/2″