Pier table
- Place of origin:
- Date:
- Artist/Maker:
lock, m, born 1705 - died 1765 (designer and maker)
- Materials and Techniques:
Gilded pine, with agate veneered slab
- Credit Line:
Given by Mrs F. E. Rhodes
- Museum number:
- Gallery location:
British Galleries, room 53b, case WW
- Download image
Object Type
From the late 17th century, side tables were designed for the pier wall separating two windows. They were often matched with a mirror and a pair of candlestands, as here. Carved and gilded pier furniture was often made to match other interior decorative features.
Place
The rustic caryatids (supports in the form of sculptured figures) which carry the table top match those flanking the mirror, and may have been inspired by the borders of the 16th-century Brussels tapestries illustrating the 'Story of Cyrus'. These hung in the Tapestry Room at Hinton House in Hampshire. Their borders were embellished with caryatids, allegorical figures and groups of birds.
Design & Designing
Like the matching mirror, the table design was also inspired by French prints in books of designs, such as J.B. Toro's Livre de Table de diverses formes of about 1716 and Nicholas Pineau's Nouveau desseins de Pieds de Tables (1737). Pineau's designs were reissued in London by William Jones in The Gentlemens' and Builders' Companion (1739) and by Batty Langley in The City and Country Builder's and Workman's Treasury of Designs (1740). Matthias Lock (born about 1710; died 1765) understood the Rococo idiom (a style imported from France) more fully than any other English furniture designer.
Materials & Making
Lock worked on the table for 15 days, and was probably responsible for the carving, which cost £21. The joiner's costs came to £22 5s 5d.
Physical description
Side table, carved, bronzed and gilded, the slab top veneered with onyx. gilt pine possibly with agate veneered slab. The supporting rectangular frame has a guilloche and feather frieze with a central winged lion mask cartouche. The frame is supported on four acanthus scroll legs which curve inwards to the base plinth. The front legs are formed of rustic caryatid/atlantes figures (matching those on the accompanying mirror - W.8-1960) which are connected to the central lion mask by a fruit and flower festoon.
Analysis of paint and gilding layer stratification on this table and the pier glass, W.8-1960, carried out by Pascale Patris, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, December 2003; report in curatorial file for W.8-1960
Place of Origin
London, England (made)
Date
ca. 1745 (made)
Artist/maker
lock, m, born 1705 - died 1765 (designer and maker)
Materials and Techniques
Gilded pine, with agate veneered slab
Dimensions
Height: 85.1 cm, Width: 130.8 cm, Depth: 71.1 cm
Object history note
Designed and made in London by Matthias Lock (born in London, about 1710, died there in 1765)
Descriptive line
Side table from Tapestry Room at Hinton House, designed by Matthias Lock, carved, bronzed and gilded, the slab top veneered with onyx, Britain, ca.1745.
Labels and date
(W.8-1960 and W.35-1964)
MIRROR AND SIDE-TABLE
ENGLISH; about 1745
Carved wood, bronzed and gilded, the top of the table veneered with onyx
From the Tapestry Room at Hinton House, Somerset, and designed by Matthias Lock for the second Earl Poulett. The original design (shown alongside) shows that it took eighty-nine days to make the table, and cost £22 - 5s - 5d for the joiner and £21 for the carving. Lock worked on it for fifteen days, the remainder being done by his assistants. The design for the mirror shows that it took one hundred and thirty days' work and cost £36 - 5s; Lock worked on it for twenty days. Lock was an exceptionally capable draughtsman who understood the Rococo idiom more fully than any other English furniture designer.
The table was given by Mrs. F.E. Rhodes. [pre October 2000]
British Galleries:
Matthias Lock's sketch for this table and its matching mirror is in the Museum's Print Room. Notes tell us that the table took 89 days to carve and the mirror 138 days. Lock was a carver and a teacher of ornament, whose innovative Rococo designs were very influential. [27/03/2003]
Subjects depicted
Fruit; Scrolls; Acanthus; Lion; Scrolls (motifs); Vines; Classicism; Feather; Caryatids; Wing; Atlantes
Categories
Furniture; British Galleries
Collection code
FWK
