A George III mahogany spider-leg table attributed to Thomas Chippendale 1768

A George III mahogany spider-leg table attributed to Thomas Chippendale 1768

An Important George III mahogany spider-leg table attributed to Thomas Chippendale
1768. England

The tulip banded rectangular mahogany drop-leaf top with gateleg action, on a straight mahogany frieze with oak lined cockbeeded drawers to each short side, on eight slender columnar form turned legs and stretchers ending in pad feet.

Employing superb timber, this ‘neat’ mahogany table is a wonderful example of Chippendale’s utilitarian furniture which, through the sheer quality of materials and execution, is at once simple and distinguished. Chippendale supplied, ‘a neat Mahogany 8 leg Table of fine wood’, on 9 June 1768 at a cost of £2 2s 0d and a further pair of ‘2 neat Mahogany Spider leg Tables of good wood’, probably similar in form to those at Dumfries House from 1760 although not necessarily by Chippendale.

For a related example, see the spider-leg table sold Christie’s London, 31 October 2012, lot 79 (£13,750)

Sir Edward Knatchbull, 7th Bart. (1704-1789) comissioned Thomas Chippendale to make a ‘neat Mahogany 8 leg Table of fine wood’, on 9 June 1768 at a cost of £2 2s 0d. (request image)

Sir Edward Knatchbull’s account of furnishings with Thomas Chippendale, 9 June October 1768, ‘To a neat Mahogany 8 leg Table of fine wood £2 2s 0d’ (The Knatchbull-Brabourne MSS U951/A18/26);
Inventory, 1885, p. 66, in the ‘Chintz Room’;
Inventory, 1926, p. 27, in the ‘Service Room’;

Christopher Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, Vol. II, London, 1978, p. 224, fig. 410.

A very similar table is pictured in The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, Vol. II by Christopher Gilbert, page 224.