Table thumbnail 1
Table thumbnail 2
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
British Galleries, Room 54

Table

1714-1718 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Object Type
This is one of a pair of side tables. Their decoration proclaims the status of the original owner. His initials, 'RT(?)C' form the central feature of the table top. The front apron bears the armorial crest of the Temple family. Both crest and initials are crowned with a baron's coronet.

Place
Stowe was built in the late 17th century by Sir Richard Temple but radically altered and expanded by his son, the Ist Viscount Cobham, from around 1718. This table is probably part of a suite of furniture made for Stowe but may have been ordered before 1718, when Richard Temple was a baron (as a baron's coronet is shown) or may have been ordered at that time for another house, perhaps a London house. Although it is now more famous for its gardens, Stowe once had 'some of the finest Rooms in Europe'. It was furnished with 'gilded carvings, glasses and sconces, elegant tables, gilded furniture'. This side table formed part of a set of gilded furniture that included a chest, and a fire screen now also in the V&A (W.40-1949).

Materials & Making
When first made, this table would have resembled solid gold. This bright, shiny effect was achieved by 'water gilding'. First the decoration was built up in gesso, a kind of plaster. Details were then cut into the gesso, using special punches on the table top. A red clay ground or 'bole' was painted over the gesso to enrich the colour of the gold. This was wetted just before the sheets of gold leaf were applied. Finally, the raised areas were burnished with agate (a hardstone) or a dog's tooth to achieve a gleaming surface.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Softwood frame and oak top, carved, gessoed and gilded
Brief description
A table of carved and gilded oak and pine, with high-relief gesso decoration, the apron carving including the crest (a martlet, or heraldic bird, on a ducal coronet) of the Temple family, beneath a baron's coronet, for Lord Cobham, the top including the cypher 'RC' surmounted by a baron's coronet.
Physical description
A table of oak and pine, carved in relief, with additional decoration carved in the gesso. The top shows a design of linked, broken-S scrolls, enclosing shells at each corner and centreing on a monogram RC within two bound fronds of laurel, below a baron's coronet. The four legs are of rectangular, tapering form, rising from foliate cups and ending in bulbous, scrolled tops. The large feet, below the stretcher, which is of double-Y form, are also carved with spreading foliage. All the surfaces of the legs, feet and stretcher, are carved with complex strapwork forms, and decorated with punched detail to increase the play of light on different surfaces of the gilding. The apron of the table on one long side is carved with strapwork scrolls enclosing two sheel that flank a repeated centrepiece of bound laurels enclosing the crest of Richard Temple Lord Cobham (a martlet, or heraldic bird, on a ducal coronet), beneath a baron's coronet.
Dimensions
  • Height: 78cm
  • Width: 86cm
  • Depth: 48cm
Dimensions checked: Measured; 04/02/1999 by dw
Style
Gallery label
  • TABLE ENGLISH; about 1715 Pine with gilt gesso The top carved with the monogram RC for Richard Temple, Baron Cobham (1714) and 1st Viscount Cobham.(pre October 2000)
  • A SIDE TABLE FROM STOWE Made about 1714 Carved pine and oak, gessoed and water-gilded Attributed to James Moore (1670-1726) Made for Richard Temple, Baron Cobham (1669?-1749) for his house, Stowe Buckinghamshire. The patron's initials RC form the central design of the table top. The front apron bears the armorial crest of the Temple family 'on a ducal coronet a martlet or'. Both crest and initials are crowned with a baron's coronet. As Temple was made a baron by George I in 1714 and a viscount in 1718, this table must date between 1714 and 1718. Its pair was sold in London in 1991. Built in the late 17th century, Stowe had 'some of the finest Rooms…in Europe'. The house was furnished in 'the most superb taste' with 'gilded carvings, glasses and sconces, elegant tables, gilded furniture'. The tables formed part of a set of gilded furniture including a chest and a firescreen probably from the State Dressing Room. The contents of Stowe were sold at auction in 1848. The chest, similarly decorated with Cobham's initials and coat of arms, was sold again in London in 1992. The fire screen with Cobham's crest is also in the V&A. Purchased by the V&A from Phillips of Hitchin, Hertfordshire in 1947.(pre October 2000)
Object history
Probably made by the London workshops of James Moore (born in London, about 1670, died in London, 1726) for Richard Temple, Baron Cobham (about 1669-1749). Baroque ornament is shown to advantage in the crisply carved giltwood of this table from Stowe House, Buckinghamshire. The scrolls and shells are similar to designs published by Daniel Marot (1661-1752). The tapering legs are based on earlier designs for the French king by Pierre Le Pautre (1659-1744).

The heraldic carving on the apron of the table is similar to that on a giltwood firescreen W.40-1949, also attributed to James Moore and probably from Stowe. Moore originally worked with John Gumley (1670-1728), a manufacturer of mirrors, but from about 1712 Moore was in business on his own, in Nottingham Court, Short's Gardens, St-Giles-in-the-Fields, London. He worked for the royal household, for the Dukes of Marlborough and Montagu, and for a number of other clients, specialising in this form of carved and gilded work, which used a thick gesso layer, with much of the finest detail worked in the gesso.

Richard Temple inherited a baronetcy from his father in 1697. After an illustrious career in the army during the wars against the French, and as a politician, he was created Baron Cobham in 1714 and elevated as Viscount Cobham in 1718 (this change of status allowing us to date the table to these years). In September 1715 he married Anne Halsey, daughter of Edmund Halsey (d. 1729), who had made a considerable fortune as owner of the Anchor Brewery in Southwark, a London institution which had been founded in 1616 and continued under various owners until 1981.

The table appears to have been made between 1714 and 1718, before large-scale architectural works started on Stowe House. The table cannot be identified with certainty in the catalogue of the sale of the contents of Stowe House in 1848, but it is always possible that the suite of which it formed part (including the screen W.40-1949) was made for another house (perhaps in London) or was simply not fully described in the sale.

Gilt side table purchased from Phillips of Hitchin. The same table, or an identical pair was with the Kent Galleries, Conduit Street, London, in 1930. See Country Life article noted below.

Notes from R.P. 47/1179

23/5/47 letter from Angus Phillips to Edwards
confirms that he is holding a gilt side table from Stowe House.

27/5/47 letter from Angus Phillips (Philips of Hitchin) to Ralph Edwards (Keeper of Furniture) in Furniture department archive.

"I bought the table from a dealer who acquired it at the x sale on 18/19 Dec. 1946 by Messrs Barry Bros & Bagshaw, Market Place Kettering; this sale was held at Cranford Hall, Northants. by direction of the late Major E. Grant Thorold. It must have been acquired by the ancestors of Major Grant
Thordad (mispelling of Thorold)from the 1848 sale at Stowe House by Christies." (Leela Meinertas 03/11/22)

Note in Furniture Department Archive. (John Bly is the antique dealer John Bly)

"John Bly rang March 1972
W30-1947 was brought by Phillips from Messrs Bly of Tring,who bought -It from Mrs. Edinborough of Stamford. It was sold as one of a pair at a sale in Northampton by the executors of Major H. Grant Thorold, Cranford Hall, Northants." (Bought by Mrs Edinborough). (LM 03/11/22)

Information from Mark Westgarth 31/10/22
Mrs Edinborough is perhaps the wife of Bernard Edinborough. The family of Edinborough established 2 shops in Stamford....William Edinborough & Sons (est at least by 1920, but probably earlier) and Bernard Edinborough who may be William's son or brother?...Bernard Edinborough was established in 1910. Mrs Ida Edinborough was running Bernard Edinborough shop by the 1930s and continued until the 1960s. (LM 02/11/22)

What appears to be the pair to this table was shown in Arthur Oswald, 'Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire III', Country Life, 7 December 1940, pp. 300-504, in the first-floor ante-room, in fig. 7, p. 503. It would be usual for such a suite of furniture to include one or more tables and mirrors, seat furniture and a firescreen.
Subject depicted
Summary
Object Type
This is one of a pair of side tables. Their decoration proclaims the status of the original owner. His initials, 'RT(?)C' form the central feature of the table top. The front apron bears the armorial crest of the Temple family. Both crest and initials are crowned with a baron's coronet.

Place
Stowe was built in the late 17th century by Sir Richard Temple but radically altered and expanded by his son, the Ist Viscount Cobham, from around 1718. This table is probably part of a suite of furniture made for Stowe but may have been ordered before 1718, when Richard Temple was a baron (as a baron's coronet is shown) or may have been ordered at that time for another house, perhaps a London house. Although it is now more famous for its gardens, Stowe once had 'some of the finest Rooms in Europe'. It was furnished with 'gilded carvings, glasses and sconces, elegant tables, gilded furniture'. This side table formed part of a set of gilded furniture that included a chest, and a fire screen now also in the V&A (W.40-1949).

Materials & Making
When first made, this table would have resembled solid gold. This bright, shiny effect was achieved by 'water gilding'. First the decoration was built up in gesso, a kind of plaster. Details were then cut into the gesso, using special punches on the table top. A red clay ground or 'bole' was painted over the gesso to enrich the colour of the gold. This was wetted just before the sheets of gold leaf were applied. Finally, the raised areas were burnished with agate (a hardstone) or a dog's tooth to achieve a gleaming surface.
Bibliographic references
  • J. De Serre, 'A Gesso Table'. Country Life, 26 August 1930, pp. 129-130. This records the table (or one en suite with it) at the Kent Galleries, Conduit St, London.
  • Ralph Edwards and Margaret Jourdain, Georgian Cabinet-Makers (London: Country Life Ltd, 1944), p.24 and plate 20.
Collection
Accession number
W.30-1947

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Record createdFebruary 15, 2001
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