Object Description
A centre table attributed to Holland and Sons related to a table in Clarence House, this exceptional table has a circular top decorated with six radiating amboyna veneers with a border of concentric marquetry rings. The decoration comprising kingwood bands within boxwood stringing, a continuous boxwood laurel wreath with ivory berries on a satinwood ground and further amboyna borders. The frieze has amboyna crossbanding and applied ormolu sunburst medallions. The support is composed of purpleheart columns inlaid with kingwood, terminating in low splayed feet, which encircle a classical urn on a plinth. The superb ormolu mounts include acanthus leaves, classical masks and patera. English, circa 1860.
A table with a similar base and particularly fine ormolu mounts was exhibited by Holland and Sons in the International Exhibition in 1862 and illustrated as plate 40 in J. B. Waring’s book (see pages 100-103 for further references to this exhibition). A further closely related piece was in the collection of the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and is shown in the Morning Room in Clarence House in the Daily Mail’s article ‘Inside the private world of Prince Charles’, November 2018. Originally founded by Stephen Taprell and William Holland, a relation of the architect Henry Holland, the firm worked extensively for the Royal Family, being granted a Royal Warrant by Queen Victoria for the decoration and furnishing of Osborne House, Sandringham and Marlborough House. They exhibited at all the major international exhibitions from 1851 to 1878 and produced over 300 separate commissions for the British government, including work at the Palace of Westminster and the Victoria and Albert Museum