Side table

John Wildsmith|John Mayhew

table top 1759, base 1794 · Carved and gilded pine; marbles, including rosso and nero antico, orange Veronese, yellow Siena, brown, gray, and white fleur de pêcher, black and gold Portor, orange and violet Spanish brocatello, and white Carrara, and hardstones, including gray and red granite, red and white jasper, pink quartz, porphyry, bloodstone, serpentine, golden and brown agate and onyx, and lapis lazuli · European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

The specimen-marble table top was supplied by John Wildsmith in 1759. Affluent Englishmen are known to have collected marble and pietre dure tabletops while visiting Italy on their grand tours. Lord Coventry never traveled to Italy, however, and this tabletop is a rare example of London manufacture, documented by the payment to the craftsman John Wildsmith in 1759. Wildsmith, who was also responsible for the marble mantelpiece in the tapestry room, inlaid 176 squares of differently colored hardstone specimens in a diagonal checkerboard pattern in order to display "all the curious sorts." The "large frame . . . on turned legs, neatly carved and the whole gilt in burnished gold" was supplied much later, in 1794, by the London firm of John Mayhew and William Ince.

Artist

John Wildsmith|John Mayhew

Date

table top 1759, base 1794

Medium

Carved and gilded pine; marbles, including rosso and nero antico, orange Veronese, yellow Siena, brown, gray, and white fleur de pêcher, black and gold Portor, orange and violet Spanish brocatello, and white Carrara, and hardstones, including gray and red granite, red and white jasper, pink quartz, porphyry, bloodstone, serpentine, golden and brown agate and onyx, and lapis lazuli

Culture

British, London

Department

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Credit line

Gift of Samuel H. Kress Foundation, 1958