Pedestal sideboard
workshop of Rattee & Kett (1855 - 1926)
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1860
Materials
Carrara marble, parcel gilding, painted pine
Measurements
151.5 x 274.4 x 91.5 cm
Place of origin
Cambridge
Order this imageCollection
Wimpole, Cambridgeshire
NT 206587.3
Summary
A painted pine, parcel-gilt and marble-topped pedestal sideboard, 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 serving tables, this pedestal sideboard and a side table. Topped by a slab of Carrara marble with a rear pediment carved with scrolls, festoons of fruit and foliage and flowers around a central mascaron. The friezes with parcel-gilt moulded and carved edges. Raised on a pair of pedestal cupboards, each with paneled doors and paneled sides. The panels edged with parcel gilt mouldings. Each cupboard door flanked by an acanthus-carved scrolling truss. The backboard between the pedestals of three panels edged with gilt egg and dart-carved mouldings. All raised on a plinth base painted to imitate black marble. The front frieze with a mascaron-centred pendant apron carved with festoons of flowers, fruit and foliage and parcel-gilt. -- Unattributed to a maker for many years, drawings by the Cambridge firm of stonemasons and woodcarvers Rattee & Kett were discovered in 2007 and they included one for this pedestal sideboard. It was designed to stand at the East End of 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, the drawing for this sideboard is dated 5th February 1860 and signed Rattee & Kett, the name adopted by the firm after 1855. The sideboard was removed from Wimpole by Elsie Kipling, Mrs George Bambridge (d. 1976) in a drive to remove Victorian furniture at Wimpole after she and her husband acquired the house in 1938. It was bought at auction and returned to the house in 1999.
Provenance
Probably commissioned by Charles Philip Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke (1799 - 1873). Visible at the East End of the Great Dining Room at Wimpole in a photograph published by Country Life on 28th May 1927. Removed from Wimpole by Elsie Kipling, Mrs George Bambridge (1896 - 1976), who purchased Wimpole in 1938, it passed through the hands of the decorator Felix Harbord and then to the Chelsea house of the late Dowager Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava. Purchased by National Trust at Christie's on 25th March 1999 (Lot 377) with funds raised by Wimpole.
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, 130, Figures 285 - 287 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