P. Macquoid and R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, Vol. III(London: 1927), pp. 188-190
A. Bowett, Early Georgian Furniture: 1715-1740 (Woodbridge: 2009), p. 263
A pair of Queen Anne cocus wood card tables, the shaped quartered tops opening to reveal a red suede-lined playing surface with counter wells and candle stands, above a shaped frieze raised on tapering cabriole legs carved with lappets and terminating in pad feet.
Executed in cocus wood, these tables represent a small, rare portion of the output of card tables at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Of the very few examples made in this timber, ones at Ickworth House (Figure 10), Temple Newsam (Plate 5:117), the Victoria and Albert Museum (Figure 1.) and in the collection of the great art collector Captain N. R. Colville (Figure 16.) compare closely with the present tables, which are also overlaid with vibrantly contrasting laburnum veneers set diagonally, vertically and crossbanded.
However, unlike these examples, which feature rectangular frames that do not conform to the lobed shaping of their tops, the present pair features a shaped frieze, a more sophisticated and costly feature adding to the elegance of this pair. In this regard, the present tables compare more closely with an example formerly in the collection of H.R.H. The Princess Royal and The Earl of Harewood, Harewood House, Yorkshire and another at the V&A, donated by Mary Browett. The present tables are the only known pair constructed in cocus wood and are possibly unique.
Predominantly made in walnut, card tables were produced in great numbers in the first decades of the eighteenth century due to the mania for speculation and the resultant popularity of card playing.
Cocus wood is a hard, dense timber with a chocolate brown heart and a yellow sapwood. It was imported from the West Indies and was often known as West Indian ebony. It was used as a cabinet wood between 1660-1740 and in this instance has been cut and laid both diagonally and vertically to create a striking visual effect.
These tables were formerly in the renowned collection of Eric B. Moller at Thorncombe Park, Surrey. Shipping magnate, celebrated racehorse owner and polo player, Eric Moller (d. 1988) amassed during the 1940s and 50s one of the finest and most important collections of English furniture of the twentieth century, all under the expert guidance of R. W. Symonds (d. 1958). Moller’s collection formed the basis of Symonds’ 1955 book Furniture Making in 17th and 18th Century England, which became a benchmark reference for English furniture scholars and connoisseurs as well as an invaluable document in the history of collecting. In 1943 Moller purchased the historic home of Thorncombe Park in Surrey which prompted his start as a collector. Symonds was instrumental not only in the formation of the Moller Collection but also that of other legendary twentieth-century collector Samuel Messer (d.1991), a number of articles from whose collection were later acquired by Ann and Gordon Getty leading a new generation of great collectors.