Serving table
workshop of Rattee & Kett (1855 - 1926)
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1860
Materials
Carrara marble, parcel-gilding, painted pine
Measurements
82.5 x 245.2 x 78.5 cm
Place of origin
Cambridge
Order this imageCollection
Wimpole, Cambridgeshire
NT 206587.1
Summary
A painted pine, parcel-gilt and marble-topped side or serving table, English, circa 1860, designed and made by Rattee & Kett (1855 - 1926) of Cambridge. Part of a set of four pieces of furniture comprising a pair of these serving tables, a pedestal sideboard and a side table. This side table having a Carrara marble top above friezes edged by egg and dart-carved gilt mouldings. The front frieze with a projecting block at either end, mounted with a gilt paterae and above an acanthus-carved and scrolling truss-like leg. Each front leg raised on an ebonized platform base and tied to the rear leg with a front-to-back stretcher. Each rear leg with an acanthus-carved and scrolling truss on its outer face. -- Unattributed to a maker for many years, drawings by the Cambridge firm of stonemasons and woodcarvers Rattee & Kett were discovered and they included one for this pair of side tables. This pair were probably designed to flank the chimneypiece in Henry Edward Kendall's (York 1776 - Westminster 1875) dining room at Wimpole. Rattee & Kett worked on Wimpole Church in 1860, 1871, 1904 and 1922. For some years, it was thought that this set of furniture was made in advance of Queen Victoria's visit to Wimpole in 1843. However, some of these drawings are signed 'Rattee & Kett', the name adopted by the firm after 1855.
Provenance
Probably commissioned by Charles Philip Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke (1799 - 1873). Visible in the Great Dining Room at Wimpole, flanking the fireplace, in a photograph published by Country Life on 28th May 1927. Listed in the Inventory taken at Wimpole in 1965 in the Garden Room (p. 2). One of this pair of side tables photographed in the Saloon in a photograph published by Country Life on 7th December 1967. The hall and contents were bequeathed to the National Trust in 1976 by Elsie Kipling, Mrs George Bambridge (1896 – 1976), daughter of Rudyard Kipling, to the National Trust together with Wimpole Hall, all its contents and an estate of 3000 acres in 1976.
Makers and roles
workshop of Rattee & Kett (1855 - 1926), carver
References
Adshead 2007: David Adshead, Wimpole Architectural drawings and topographical views, The National Trust, 2007, pp. 128 - 131 Adshead, 2007: 'A Table Overturned', in ABC Bulletin II (January, 2007), 6 Hussey, 1927: Christopher Hussey. “Wimpole Hall II, Cambridgeshire: the seat of the Hon. Gerald Agar-Robartes.” Country Life 28 May 1927: pp.844-51., 847, Figure 7 Hussey, 1967: Christopher Hussey. “Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire - II” Country Life 7 December 1967, 1466 - 1471, 1466, Figure 2