Games table
John McLean & Son
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1800
Materials
Rosewood, satinwood, beech, deal, leather, brass, paint
Measurements
71 x 84 x 48 cm
Place of origin
Tottenham Court Road
Order this imageCollection
Saltram, Devon
NT 871334
Summary
A rosewood games table, English, circa 1800, by John McLean (variously McLane, M'Lean, Macklane etc.) & Son, of Tottenham Court Road and Marylebone Street. The satinwood top edged with gilt brass and centred by a sliding panel which is reversible, lined with red leather on one side and inlaid with a chequer board on the other. Lined to the interior with a leather backgammon board, and with a well for counters. The ends of the table's top also lined with red leather. With shaped friezes with sunken reserves at the centre and ends; the latter mounted with ebonized lion masks, the central reserve mounted with a spray of ebonized foliage. Raised on a base of reeded 'X'-form end supports, topped by foliate gilt brass capitals and joined by a baluster and ring-turned stretcher. The base painted a dull green to emulate bronze.
Full description
This table may have been purchased for Saltram when the Library was remodelled in 1819. It bears the trade label of John McLean and Son, a London firm (fl. 1770 - 1825) specialising in English versions of ‘Elegant Parisian Furniture’. The firm used two different trade labels which have been found on a dozen or so pieces of furniture. The first (circa 1799 - 1805) is the one found here, on the Saltram games table, and reads ‘Manufactured and Sold by J. M’LANE & SON / Pancrass Street, Tottenham Court Road, and / 58, Upper Mary-le-bone-Street / Portland Place’; the second (circa 1805 - 1815) read ‘Manufactured and Sold by / JOHN McLEAN & SON / 58, Upper Mary-le-bone-Street / The end of Howland Street, Portland Place’. A very similar, contemporary games table associated with McLean is preserved at Berrington Hall, Herefordshire (NT 617708). Another is illustrated in the Dictionary of English Furniture. McLean and Son furniture has been described as displaying 'such a distinctive artistic personalit that many similar unlabelled items can be confidently attributed to their workshops'. Their cabinet work was of a 'consistently high order' and their 'gilt mounts finely chased'. Despite the quality of their work, the business declined after John died in 1815 and his son, William, took over the firm. By 1821, he was receiving poor relief and by 1822 was 'a bankrupt in prison'. When he died in 1825, it was said that he 'died so poor that his body was sent in a box by waggon into the country to relations' for burial.
Provenance
Possibly acquired by John Parker III (1772 - 1840), 1st Earl of Morley and thence by descent. Accepted in part payment of death duties by HM Treasury from the executors of Edmund Robert Parker, 4th Earl of Morley (1877 - 1951) and transferred to the National Trust in 1957.
Marks and inscriptions
Division beneath sliding section of top: Manufactured and Sold by J, McLANE & SON, Pancrass Street, Tottenham Court- Road, and 58, Upper Mary-le-bone-street, Portland-Place
Makers and roles
John McLean & Son, cabinetmaker
References
Wills, 1966: Geoffrey Wills. “Some labelled furniture at Saltram.” Furniture History 2 (1966). Redburn, 1978: Simon Redburn. “John McLean and son.” Furniture History 14 (1978): pp.30-37. Beard, Geoffrey W. Dictionary of English furniture makers, 1660-1840 1986., Vol. III, p. 269, Figure 14 McLean, John & Son (1770-1825) | BIFMO