Pier table
Joseph Perfetti (d. 1777)
Category
Furniture
Date
1771 (designed)
Materials
Carved limewood and beech, deal, gesso, gold leaf, black stone, iron
Measurements
86.5 x 105.7 x 56 cm
Place of origin
Marylebone
Order this imageCollection
Saltram, Devon
NT 871292.1
Summary
A carved and gilt pier or end table, one of a pair, English, designed by Robert Adam (1728-92) in 1771 and executed by Joseph Perfetti (fl. 1760-77) in 1771/2. Of demi-lune form, and topped by a slab of black polished stone. The frame with an an acanthus-carved moulding above a frieze carved with alternating urns and calyx flowers. The legs turned and tapering and headed by a waisted capital above a band of foliate roundels. The legs fluted and entwined with a garland of husks issuing from the apron. The legs joined by a rectangular-section pierced stretcher carved with foliate roundels and topped by a swag-hung urn on a rectangular socle. The feet turned and with gardrooned and beaded knops.
Full description
These tables, along with the mirrors [NT 871293.1 and .2] above them, were designed by Robert Adam (1728-92) in 1771 (Soane Museum Adam volume 20/70) and the former were made by Joseph Perfetti (fl. 1760-77), a carver and gilder of St. Marylebone, London: on 31 March 1772 a payment of £41 was recorded in John Parker II, 1st Lord Boringdon's cash book for 'table frames in the velvet room'. Like other carved tables by Perfetti, the pendant swags to the table aprons are reinforced from behind with strips of curved iron. Robert Adam was otherwise not involved in the creation of the Red Velvet Drawing Room, which pre-dated his work at Saltram, but which was re-decorated by Theresa Parker (1745-75) as a fitting pre-cursor to the Great Drawing Room (now the Saloon) and Library (now the Dining Room), which had been designed by Adam in the late 1760s. The mirrors and tables, respectively carved with a garland of leaves about the frame and legs, incorporated gilded versions of the real floral and foliate garlands with which rooms were hung when used for entertainments. The vocabulary of their carving thus signalled hospitality, as well as being fashionable neo-Classical references to the ancient world. The tables themselves resemble a design of Adam's of May 1768 for the Hon. Robert Hay Drummond, Archbishop of York (Soane Museum Adam volume 17/11).
Provenance
Designed in 1771 and probably installed in 1771/2. In 1951 and accepted by HM Treasury in lieu of full payment of Estate Duty from the Executors of Edmund Robert Parker (1877-1951), 4th Earl of Morley and transferred to NT in 1957.
Makers and roles
Joseph Perfetti (d. 1777), carver Robert Adam (Kirkcaldy 1728 - London 1792), designer Joseph Perfetti (d. 1777), gilder
References
E. Harris, The genius of Robert Adam: his interiors (New Haven: Yale, 2001),, pp. 237