Pair of pier tables

This pair of tables was supplied about 1778, either by Thomas Chippendale or by his son, Thomas Chippendale junior, to Sir James Ibbetson of Denton Hall, Yorkshire. Chippendale's work at Denton Hall is recorded in a document also owned by the Chippendale Society (LEEAG.CHIPSOC.1971.3) which notes payments by Sir James Ibbetson to various furniture makers in the late 1770s, including £551 to Chippendale, far more than to rival makers. John Carr, the architect of Denton, may have encouraged Sir James to use Chippendale, as he did with John Spencer of Cannon Hall. No itemised bills survive but the tables, together with a half-round commode now at the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, display such close affinities with Chippendale's other marquetry furniture that an attribution is confidently justified. The three pieces of furniture were recorded in the Best Dressing Room in an inventory of Denton taken in 1839 (John Goodchild Archive): ‘Two Pier Tables & Cover/Half Circular Cabinet'. Denton Hall was the only house in the old parish of Otley that Chippendale is known to have furnished. At one time the tables had a mahogany backboard and three shelves beneath the tops, and plugged holes indicate where they were screwed to the legs. It is not known whether this arrangement was original.

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