Very Good Mid-18Thc Dolphin Carved Oak Tilt-Top Tripod Table C.1760

The exceptional quality tilt top tripod table in fine English oak, having a gadrooned dished moulded circular tilt-top raised on a handsomely carved support formed as a scalloped top to three dolphins on a scrolling rococo base, above three moulded swept legs to scroll carved feet, surviving from the late George II period.

The table is in very pleasing, good original condition, with a wonderful colour and is totally untouched.

Dolphins were a popular motif in mid eighteenth-century English furniture design. The revival of classical ideas and mythology reignited this interest. Dolphins are also included in Thomas Chippendale’s ‘The gentlemen and cabinetmakers director’ of 1762.

This table came from the estate of the late Antonia Cole, formerly of Wyld Court, Hawkchurch; once held at Cam House, Campden Hill, W8, the property of Evelyn St George, Antonia's grandmother. Evelyn St George, nee Baker, married Howard Bligh St George in 1891, and some years later started a long affair with his cousin, the artist William Orpen. She moved to London in 1912 where she met many of the successful artists of the day. Upon her death, Sotheby’s held the auction of the contents of the property on the 24th of July, 1939: ‘Catalogue of the important contents of Cam House, Campden Hill, W.8, the property of Mrs. Evelyn St. George’

This is a stunning table, of the highest quality and rare in its choice of carving, is both a work of art and a piece of utility with a beautiful sleepy provenance.