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Product Description

Urn stands are perennially popular and this Chippendale period example manages to incorporate, in a small piece, great examples of period design and carving.
In addition to the intricate fretwork, the cluster columns legs simulating bamboo really set this apart from the norm.

English, London c. 1770

This urn stand belongs to an important group of such pieces that are represented in the scholarly literature on English furniture. One stand with an identical gallery to ours is illustrated by Oliver Brackett and H. Clifford Smith in English Furniture Illustrated: A Pictorial Review of English Furniture from Chaucer to Queen Victoria (1950) and was in the famous Thursby-Pelham collection of furniture:

This same stand features in an article in Country Life on the Thursby-Pelham collection (October the 10^th, 1925).

Another stand from this group has appeared at auction on three occasions over the past 20 years. The gallery on this example has been replaced but it shares the other distinctive detailing as our piece, suggesting the same workshop and designer. This piece is believed to have been owned by the Princess Royal, Princess Louise-the daughter of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra-before descending through the family to the Earl and Countess of Southesk.

A third closely related example was offered by the great dealers Gregory and Co and advertised in Connoisseur Magazine in June of 1968:

This is a very successful design and our stand, with its original gallery and stretcher, is a particularly fine example.

Research and Essay by Christopher Coles.