ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN LINNELL, CIRCA 1775

This elegant and rare side table is testament to the high and luxurious quality of furniture production in London in the second half of the 18th century as well as to the influence of continental ébénistes active in London.

With finely chased and cast ormolu mounts of the highest quality, delicately inlaid marquetry and bold neoclassical form, this demi-lune pier table is attributable to great the cabinet-maker John Linnell. It is closely related to a pair of pier tables attributed to Linnell in the Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco (inv. nos. 1980.46.1-2), with the same inlaid fluting to the frieze, identical gadrooned mounts to the edge and palmette mounts to the frieze. Another very closely related pair of demi-lune side tables attributed to John Linnell made for the 2nd Earl of Ashburnham in circa 1780 for his London house at 19 Dover Street are illustrated in H. Hayward & P. Kirkham, William and John Linnell, London, 1980, p. 163. They have similar delicate trellis marquetry to the tops as well as the same mounts and frieze inlay. The present lot varies from the former examples in the shape of the legs, which on this lot are of a rare and unusual shape; the square tapering upper section is inlaid with palmettes and the lower section is of cylindrical form in line with the Ashburnham and Legion of Honor examples, while the double gadrooned sabots of the present lot indicate the particular luxury of this commission.

This side table has been with the Lechmere family of Worcestershire probably since its making. It was possibly acquired by Edmund Lechmere (1710-1805) and later likely adorned one of the principal rooms of Rhydd Court, Malvern which was constructed by his son Sir Anthony Lechmere, 1st Baronet (1766-1849).

JOHN LINNELL

John Linnell studied French ornament at the St. Martin's Lane Academy before working for his father and eventually inheriting his father's cabinet-making and upholstery workshops in Berkeley Square in 1763. By the mid-1760's, Linnell displayed a growing interest in neoclassical form and ornament. His designs from the mid-1760's reveal the influence of the architect/designer Robert Adam, who worked on many of the same houses as Linnell such as Robert Child's Osterley Park, William Drake's Shardeloes, and Lord Scarsdale's Kedleston Hall.
In the late 1760's, Linnell was employing the specialist 'inlaying' skills of the Paris-trained Swedish ebenistes Christopher Furlogh (d.c.1787), later 'cabinet-maker' to George, Prince of Wales, and George Haupt, later cabinet-maker to the King of Sweden.