Guéridon thumbnail 1
Not currently on display at the V&A

Guéridon

ca. 1930-1950 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

This stand and its pair (W.54-2005), are versions of designs first published at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Thomas Hope showed four variations of this tripod design in his book Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, published in London in 1807, although those are shorter, for use on side tables. Another similar design had already been published in France in 1801 by Charles Percier and Pierre François Louis Fontaine in their Receuil de Décorations Intérieures.

This version was clearly designed as a stand for a lamp or a small side table. The stands were owned by the Earl and Countess of Abingdon who married in 1928. Lady Abingdon inherited a collection of French Empire furniture formed by her ancestor Lord Stuart de Rothesay between about 1820 and 1840. In Britain in the 1930s, there was a great interest in English Regency furnishings and the Abingdons may have bought as fashionable items, tying in with the French furniture they had inherited.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Parts
This object consists of 2 parts.

  • Stand (Guéridon)
  • Slab
Materials and techniques
Brass, with cast brass mounts; marble top, supported by a pine panel
Brief description
Stand (guéridon) of tripod form, in brass, supporting a slab of white, grey-veined marble
Physical description
A stand of brass, with cast decoration, raised on a low, triangular plinth, with concave sides, supporting three lion paw feet, from which rise three square-sectioned uprights. The uprights are connected with pairs of thinner, diagonal struts, composed of brass fillets, cast at their crossings and where each is attached to the columns, with circular bosses. The top of the uprights are formed of sphinx heads in brass, set proud of a circular frieze, which is decorated centrally between the uprights with mounts of anthemia flanking roundels. Inside the frieze, at the top, is set a circle of thin timber (stained pine), which fills the whole central area. It is supported by three angle brackets which are rivetted to the inside of the frieze, behind the sphinx heads. Each is attached with a screw to the underside of the wooden panel. This provides a support for the circular marble top of Carrara marble with moulded perimeter, which extends over the heads of the sphinxes.
Dimensions
  • Overall height: 87.6cm
  • Overall diameter: 37cm
Several of the dimensions of parts of this piece relate to imperial measurements, reinforcing the idea that it was made in England. For example, the plinth is 3.1 cm high (approximately 1 1/4"); the diagonal brass straps are 1.2 cm in width (1/2"); the frieze is 9.7 cm high (2 1/4")
Styles
Credit line
The Bettine, Lady Abingdon Collection, bequeathed by Mrs T. R. P. Hole
Object history
This pair of stands or gueridons, found in store with FWK Lost Nos., have been identified as part of the Hole Bequest. They are shown in the photograph of Lord Abingdon illustrated by Sarah Medlam, The Bettine, Lady Abingdon Collection The Bequest of Mrs T.R.P. Hole, fig. 2. The gueridons illustrate Lord and Lady Abingdon's taste in furnishing their London home with 20th century Empire and Regency Revival pieces to complement the Empire furnishings acquired by Lord Stuart de Rothesay.

The Stuart de Rothesay collections included a large group of pieces of French furniture (W.2 to W.25-1987 and W.53 to W.54-1987), ceramics, metalwork, books and other decorative arts, from the late Empire period and earlier, acquired in Paris by Sir Charles Stuart (from 1828 1st Lord Stuart de Rothesay) (1779-1845).The Empire furnishings (W. were probably purchased during his first period as ambassador to Paris (1815-1824), the earlier furnishings during his second embassy (1828-1830). The Empire furnishings may have been intended for 4 Carlton House Terrace which he acquired in the late 1820s and moved into in 1834. Older pieces were probably purchased for his country house, Highcliffe Castle, Hampshire (now Dorset), which was re-modelled and enlarged in the most ambitious Gothic style from 1830-1834, with some work continuing throughout the 1830s. In 1841 the Carlton Terrace House was let. The family moved their London residence to Whitehall Yard. It was possibly in 1841 (or 1845, the date of Lord Stuart de Rothesay's death) that the Empire furnishings were moved to Highcliffe.
Lord Stuart de Rothesay's collections were inherited in 1845 by his wife Elisabeth, Lady Stuart de Rothesay (née Yorke). After her death, Highcliffe House and its contents passed to his second daughter, Louisa, Lady Waterford (1818-1891) who maintained Highcliffe. She left the house and its collections to her distant cousin, Major-General Edward Stuart Wortley (1857-1934). When his younger daughter Elizabeth ('Bettine') married Montagu Bertie, 8th Earl of Abingdon in 1928, he bought the castle and its contents from his father-in-law. The Abingdons sold Highcliffe and most of its contents in 1949 but retaineda number of pieces, including all those which later formed the Hole Bequest to the V&A. After her husband's death in 1963, Lady Abingdon lived much of the time with her close friends, Mr and Mrs Tahu Hole, to whom she bequeathed all her personal possessions on her death in 1978. Tahu Hole died in 1985 and a year later his widow Joyce approached the Museum and offered the collection as a bequest. She died in December 1986 and, in accordance with her will, the Museum chose those items that it wished to add to its collections. Other items from the collection were sold to benefit the Museum and the proceeds added to the funds bequeathed.

Production
This form of Regency tripod was frequently copied in the late-nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth century. Although it is difficult to date this piece closely, it was probably acquired by Lord and Lady Abingdon in the 1930s (they married in 1928), or even after the second World War. This piece and its pair are shown in their London flat in a photograph of Lord Abingdon taken in the 1950s. They were presumably chosen to complement the Empire furniture that Lady Abingdon had inherited from her ancestor, Lord Stuart de Rothesay.
Subjects depicted
Summary
This stand and its pair (W.54-2005), are versions of designs first published at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Thomas Hope showed four variations of this tripod design in his book Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, published in London in 1807, although those are shorter, for use on side tables. Another similar design had already been published in France in 1801 by Charles Percier and Pierre François Louis Fontaine in their Receuil de Décorations Intérieures.

This version was clearly designed as a stand for a lamp or a small side table. The stands were owned by the Earl and Countess of Abingdon who married in 1928. Lady Abingdon inherited a collection of French Empire furniture formed by her ancestor Lord Stuart de Rothesay between about 1820 and 1840. In Britain in the 1930s, there was a great interest in English Regency furnishings and the Abingdons may have bought as fashionable items, tying in with the French furniture they had inherited.
Associated objects
Collection
Accession number
W.53:1 &2-2005

About this object record

Explore the Collections contains over a million catalogue records, and over half a million images. It is a working database that includes information compiled over the life of the museum. Some of our records may contain offensive and discriminatory language, or reflect outdated ideas, practice and analysis. We are committed to addressing these issues, and to review and update our records accordingly.

You can write to us to suggest improvements to the record.

Suggest feedback

Record createdFebruary 21, 2006
Record URL
Download as: JSON