CIRCA 1755

The architectural form and rich carving of this sideboard table in the George II 'antique' or 'Roman fashion' is inspired by the early neoclassical designs of William Kent. It belongs to a distinguished group of closely related tables - all no doubt executed in the same workshop - whose authorship remains tantalisingly unidentified.

Perhaps the earliest recorded examples are the set of three tables - a large example with alabaster-veneered top and a matching pair of smaller tables with mahogany 'slabs' - that were supplied to Brownlow, 9th Earl of Exeter (d.l795) for the South Dining Room at Burghley House, Lincolnshire. These are listed in the 1764 inventory - at a time when Lord Exeter was extensively patronising the Golden Square cabinet-makers Mayhew and Ince for carved mahogany furniture for the Chapel and elsewhere ('Burghley House', Country Life, 17 December 1953, p. 2040, fig. 3). Exeter did however also employ John Cobb, William and John Linnell and a local cabinet-maker in Stamford, Henry Tatham (who had trained in Cobb's workshop) during the 1760s, so the question of authorship is no clearer. Interestingly his direct neighbour and another Mayhew and Ince patron, the Earl of Lindsey, commissioned an identical table for Uffington House, Lincolnshire, now at Temple Newsam (Christopher Gilbert, Furniture at Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall, Leeds, 1978, Vol. II, p.278, fig.336), whilst further examples were recorded at Stanmer House, EastSussex, the property of the Earls of Chichester (Clifford Musgrave, Adam and Hepplewhite and other neo-classical furniture, London, 1966, p.183, pl.13) and in the collection of the Dukes of Grafton at Euston Hall, Suffolk.

A further comparable table in the Entrance Hall at Newby Hall, Yorkshire, possibly acquired by William Weddell (d.1792) has traditionally been attributed to Thomas Chippendale (Newby Hall Guide Book, 2004, p.15; 'Newby Hall', Country Life, 19 June 1937, p.691, fig.5). In 1792, Chippendale the Younger stated to the Court of Chancery that a considerable part of the furniture at Newby had been supplied at an earlier date by the firm. Furthermore, on 16 May of the same year, Chippendale, in drawing up an inventory for the property, listed '2 Carv'd Table frames - Grey Granite Slabs' in the 'Great Hall', one of which is almost certainly the Newby example (Jill Low, 'Newby Hall: Two Late Eighteenth Century Inventories', FHS, 1986, p.154). However, the surviving Chippendale bills for Newby do not identify these tables and as bills from Cobb are also extant, the Newby table could very conceivably have been supplied by the latter.

Further examples were advertised in the art and antiques press by the antique dealers G.Jetley (Apollo, October 1948), and Mallett who illustrated a pair with recessed brass castors, formerly at Chiddingstone Castle, Kent (Apollo, March 1945), whilst a sideboard table of this pattern from Chestham Park, Sussex was sold 'The properties of Mrs. Nora Prince-Littler, CBE', Christie's, London, 18-19 April 1977, lot 87, and a further table from Christ's Hospital sold Sotheby's, London, 13 and 20 November 1987, lot 259.



CASTLE NEWE

Castle Newe in Strathdon, Aberdeenshire was the family seat of the Forbes of Newe and Edinglassie, a Scottish family that can trace their descent back to 1476. The original house, constructed in 1604, was incorporated into a new castellated mansion house designed by Archibald Simpson in 1831. It was sold in 1924 to a Provost Donald Munro, Banchory, timber merchant, and subsequently demolished in 1927, the stone being used to build Elphinstone Hall, University of Aberdeen. It is not known when this sideboard table entered the Forbes family and indeed it could well have been commissioned by the family in the 18th Century. However, in view of the Regency life it was given, with the ratchetted reading-slope that has now been removed and a marble slab now put back - it seems highly likely that it was either acquired or inherited and made into a piece of library furniture by an early 19th century member of the Forbes clan. One of the more notable family members, John Forbes of Bellabeg (d.1821), familiarly dubbed as 'Bombay Jock' having founded the Indian merchant banking firm of Forbes & Co., Bombay, who descended from a collateral line of the Forbes responsible for the original 17th century House of Newe,is a possible contender. With a vast fortune at his disposal he repurchased Newe, the estate of his ancestors, besides other lands in Strathdon, and embarked on a series of extensive improvements to the estate.