A George II carved giltwood side table in the manner of William Kent
circa 1735, possibly Irish,

with a thick brèche violette marble top, above a stepped frieze decorated with egg-and-dart moulding and Vitruvian scrolls, with a foliate apron carved with a double row of lambrequins and centred with a floral crest, raised on bold acanthus-carved cabriole supports terminating in scroll feet

98cm wide, 59cm deep, 84cm high

Charles John Brinsley Butler, 7th Earl of Lanesborough (1865-1929), Swithland Hall, Swithland, Leicestershire;
Christie, Manson & Woods, 'The property of the late The Right Hon. the Earl of Lanesborough, removed from Swithland Hall, Leicester' in 'Fine French & English Furniture, Objects of Art, Tapestry, Rugs and Statuary', 7 July 1932, lot 86;
presumably purchased at the above sale by Henry Cavendish Butler, 8th Earl of Lanesborough (1868-1950);
thence by descent to Lady Freda Valentine (1895-1989);
thence by descent to Mr and Mrs Francis Anthony Brinsley Valentine.

The Collection

The Butler family held the Earldom of Lanesborough in the Peerage of Ireland from 1756 until the title's extinction in 1998. The early earls were prominent figures in Irish Georgian public life - Members of Parliament, High Sheriffs, and senior figures within the Grand Lodge of Ireland - situating the family at the centre of Enlightenment-era Dublin society. From the early nineteenth century, the principal English seat was Swithland Hall, Leicestershire, a neoclassical house designed by Sir James Pennethorne and constructed between 1834 and 1852. The hall's contents were dispersed across the middle and later twentieth century, culminating in Christie's sale of the remaining contents in October 1978. Francis Valentine inherited pieces from the collection through his mother, Lady Freda Valentine (née Butler).

The Table

This table - catalogued by Christie’s in 1932 as 'A Queen Anne side-table, of gilt-wood, designed in the manner of William Kent' - belongs to the distinguished tradition of Palladian furniture design propagated in England by William Kent (1685-1748) and his patron Lord Burlington. Kent's characteristic vocabulary - Vitruvian scrolls, Venus shells, acanthus leaves and classical ornament - is evident throughout. The boldly carved Vitruvian scroll frieze features on a side table designed by Kent for Ditchley Park, circa 1726, carved by James Richards and illustrated in S Weber, 'William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain' (p. 491). The present table's stepped frieze, egg-and-dart moulding and acanthus cabriole supports also find close parallels in a George II giltwood side table of circa 1735-40 from Ripley Castle, North Yorkshire, sold at Bonhams in 2022, and in the set of three giltwood side tables from Powis Castle, Powys (National Trust). The truss-scroll legs, carved with acanthus and anthemion foliage, further resemble those on a George II side table from Longleat, sold at Christie's in 2002.

The frame, wreathed in Vitruvian wave-scrolls, reflects the George II Roman sideboard-table patterns illustrated in William Jones's 'The Gentleman's or Builder's Companion' (1739), with a related pier table design at plate 27, and in John Vardy's 'Some Designs of Mr. Inigo Jones and Mr. William Kent' (1744). The direction of the Vitruvian scrolls finds direct parallel in at least two documented period examples within this same tradition: an Irish George II gilt-gesso console table of circa 1750 with a Vitruvian-scroll frieze, sold at Christie's South Kensington (23 January 2007, lot 226), whose lot essay places it squarely within the same Jones and Vardy lineage; and a George II white-painted console table from the Lascelles family collection at Harewood House, Yorkshire, of circa 1730-40, which was itself erroneously described as mid-nineteenth century in the Christie’s probate valuation for the 6th Earl of Harewood in 1948. The large shell motif, Vitruvian scrolls and curling acanthus also compare to a pair of side tables at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. nos. 2007.196.1 and 2007.196.2), themselves related to an unfinished Palladian drawing by Matthias Lock (c.1710-1765) in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Taken together, these comparisons suggest the scroll direction on the present table reflects a workshop or regional variant rather than any irregularity, and reinforce its place within a well-documented tradition of Palladian furniture design.

The rarity of scrolling feet on tables of Kentian type is worth noting; a console table of circa 1740 in the manner of William Kent at Blickling Hall, Norfolk (National Trust, NT 354179), although subject to some later reconstruction, offers one of the closer institutional parallels for this feature. A further comparison, if less refined in execution, may be drawn with the Brownlow pier tables at Belton House, Lincolnshire (National Trust, NT 434859), a set of circa 1730, after a design by James Gibbs, whose massive acanthus-carved cabriole legs headed by lion masks similarly demonstrate the monumental scale of support that characterises the best furniture of this Palladian moment. A more oblique but perhaps instructive parallel lies in a set of seat furniture of circa 1740 at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire (National Trust, NT 108625), possibly by Giles Grendey, whose ribbon and foliate scroll-carved cabriole legs share something of the same vigorous character as the supports of the present table, if rendered with rather greater delicacy here.

The case for an Irish origin is compelling and consistent with the Lanesborough family's deep roots in Irish Georgian culture. The Palladian vocabulary of the Vitruvian scroll frieze and the Venus shell at the apron, supported by subtly rococo-inflected asymmetrical acanthus scrolls, closely parallels a mirror by the Dublin maker Francis Booker in the Victoria and Albert Museum (W.47-1928). Most strikingly, the acanthus-carved cabriole supports find a direct comparison in a pair of giltwood pier tables commissioned by William St. Lawrence, 14th Baron Howth (1688-1748), for either his Dublin house in St. Mary's Abbey or Howth Castle, Co. Dublin - currently offered by Ronald Phillips, and illustrated in 'Irish Furniture' (pamphlet, 1978, fig. 12 and back cover), Jacqueline O'Brien and Desmond Guinness, 'Great Irish Houses and Castles' (1992, p. 27), and The Knight of Glin and James Peill, 'Irish Furniture' (2007, p. 83, fig. 106). The Howth tables display the same exuberant acanthus-cast supports and reflect an identical fusion of Palladian structure with the vigorous carving characteristic of the Dublin workshops of the period. Taken together, these comparisons suggest the present table was very probably produced in such a workshop, alive to both Kentian precedent and the emerging rococo currents of the 1740s, and may have been acquired by the Butler family during their years of active engagement with Irish public and political life.

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