Table top
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1774
Materials
Paint, plaster, marble, pine, ormolu
Measurements
4 x 153 x 76 cm (top only, excluding base)
Place of origin
Rome
Order this imageCollection
Attingham Park, Shropshire
NT 608215.1.2
Summary
A scagliola table top, Rome, circa 1774, one of a pair. Its pair signed 'Gio. P[?]os[?]agni'. Painted plaster on a pine substructure, with black marble and ormolu leaf-cast border. Rectangular, with a central oval scene painted with a reclining Classical female and Cupid. Within a field painted in ochre with scrolling foliage, all within a border of interlaced palmettes against a black marble ground.
Full description
This pair of scagliola table tops were ordered (with complimentary mosaic slabs) via the dealer James Byres by Lord Clive in Rome in 1774, when he was furnishing his new house, Claremont, near Esher in Surrey. Clive’s orders were partly cancelled in 1774 by Clive’s executors, but ‘Two Tables of Verd Antique’ and ‘Two Scagliola Tables’ were imported from Italy and sent to Claremont. They were subsequently sold with other chattels from Walcot in 1929, when they were bought by the 8th Lord Berwick. The manufacture of scagliola in Rome is almost unknown at this date, and these table tops are extremely rare. The pendant table top is signed ‘Gio.P[?]os[?]agni Roma’.
Provenance
The tops ordered by Robert Clive, Lord Clive of Plassey (1725 - 1774) from James Byres, dealer in Rome, in 1774 for his house of Claremont, Surrey. Purchased by Thomas Henry Noel-Hill, 8th Baron Berwick (1877 - 1947) at the sale of the contents of Walcot by Harrods on 22nd - 26th July 1929 (Lot 647). Thence bequeathed to the National Trust with the estate, house and contents of Attingham by 8th Lord Berwick on 15th May 1953.
References
Rowell 2001: Christopher Rowell, '"That delightful and magnificent villa”: Clive of India’s Claremont and its collections', Apollo, April 2001, pp. 14-22 Rowell & Burchard 2020: Christopher Rowell & Wolf Burchard, 'Italian Furniture at Attingham Park', Furniture History LVI (2020), 107-176, 162-3, Figures 62 & 63