A good Elizabeth I joined oak three-tier buffet or court cup-board, circa 1580-1600


Having a boarded top with applied moulded front and sides, above a cushion-moulded frieze, fitted with a drawer and gadroon-carved with leafy centre and corners, raised on compact bulbous cup-and-cover front supports, with a variety of reeding and palmette carving, and surmounted by an Ionic capital, the central shelf recess-carved in a knot-pattern (originally inlaid), also above cushion-moulded friezes incorporating a drawer, but here carved with bulbous reeds, although still with a leafy-carved centre and ends, raised on conforming (but elongated) front supports, the bottom tier with plain rails, the back uprights carved with fluting, in two-parts, 115cm wide x 42.5cm deep x 119.5cm high, (45in wide x 16 1/2in deep x 47in high)
|Provenance:Judith Hamilton Collection, Boarsney House, Robertsbridge, East Sussex, (see Lot 267 from the same collection)Sold Dreweatt Neate, The Boarsney House Sale, 18 September 2006, Lot 189 Exhibited:The Merchant's House, Marlborough, Wiltshire, 2006-2018.H. Clifford Smith, Catalogue of English Furniture & Woodwork (1927), Vol. II, p. 24 [no. 598] illustrates a related three-tier buffet in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, [Museum No. W.69&:2, 3-1920]. Although made in walnut and also inlaid to the upper and lower frieze rails, there is one notable comparison to this lot - the middle tier shelf is also inlaid, while the two remaining shelves are left plain. The central shelf is parquetry-inlaid using bog oak and holly and helps to suggest how the inlay on of this lot may have originally appeared. See also Ralph Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture (1986), Vol. II, p. 181, fig 7, for a three-tier buffet in the collection at Christ Church, Oxford, which has a gadrooned and leaf-carved middle drawer.