Details
Shaped circular, on four scroll bracket feet, the border cast and pierced with grapevine, shells and flowers, the centre chased with a band of scrolling foliage, flower trophies and birds, and applied with a cast coat-of-arms, marked on reverse and engraved 'Thomas, 153 New Bond Street, London'
2212 in. (57.2 cm.) diam.
205 oz. (6,389 gr.)
The arms are those of Wingfield impaling Coke, for Mervyn Wingfield, 7th Viscount Powerscourt (1836-1904) of Powercourt, co. Wicklow and his wife Lady Julia Coke (1844-1931), daughter of Thomas, 2nd Earl of Leicester (1822-1909), whom he married in 1864.
Provenance
Mervyn, 7th Viscount Powerscourt (1836-1904), then by descent to,
Patrick, 9th Viscount Powerscourt (1905-1973), sold privately to,
Ralph Slazenger (1914-2006), in 1961,
Powercourt, Enniskerry, co. Wicklow; Christie's House Sale, 24 September 1984, lot 156.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 22 November 2000, lot 102.

Special notice
Please note this lot is the property of a consumer. See H1 of the Conditions of Sale.
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Lot Essay

Lord Powerscourt sat in the House of Lords as one of the Irish Representative Peers until 1884, when he was created a peer of the United Kingdom. He was a Justice of the Peace in both co. Wicklow and Dublin, and acted as one of the Lord Justices of Ireland.
He completed the magnificent gardens at Powerscourt, remodeled the interior of the house to a great extent, adding a wing and creating a new dining room. Following in his father's footsteps, he employed the drunken and eccentric architect Daniel Robertson to direct the works. In spite of his success, the 7th Viscount noted that Robertson was 'always in debt and…used to hide in the domes of the roof of the house' to escape the Sheriff's officers who pursued him. By then he was crippled with gout and in an advanced state of alcoholism; at Powerscourt he 'used to be wheeled out on the terrace in a wheelbarrow with a bottle of sherry, and as long as that lasted he was able to design and direct the workmen, but when the sherry was finished he collapsed and was incapable of working till the drunken fit had evaporated.' (MS notes by Mervyn, 7th Viscount Powerscourt, in IAA, Powerscourt Album 1 (Acc. 89/62).

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