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This mid-18th century carved centre table with characteristic Irish flourishes made £169,250 at Bonhams. (Click on image to enlarge).

AN Irish George III carved mahogany centre table made £169,250 at Bonhams in London. Bonhams catalogued the table as possibly Irish but the view of the Irish trade was that it is definitely an Irish piece and it sold accordingly. The table has a shell motif, scrolled apron and foliate carving to the legs, all strongly suggestive of an Irish mid 18th century origin.
In a catalogue footnote Bonhams observed: ” two elements in the design of the table here do not appear to be obviously paralleled on any tables securely identified as Irish. These are the gadrooned carving to the perimeter of the top and the presence of claw and ball feet. A possible exception to the latter is a carved mahogany tea table, in the collection of the Winterthur Museum, Delaware, with similar claw and ball feet, previously thought to be American and now possibly considered to be Irish”.

The table sold at Bonhams shared characteristics with tables illustrated in a 2007 book on Irish furniture by The Knight of Glin and James Peil.

A PAIR OF IRISH GEORGE II MAHOGANY SIDE TABLES CIRCA 1755, POSSIBLY BY RICHARD CRANFIELD.

WHAT promises to be the most expensive Irish furniture sold this year comes up at Sotheby’s Arts of Europe auction in London on December 4.  The sophistication of mid 18th century Irish furniture making is evident in these c1755 George II side tables possibly by Richard Cranfield. Thought to have been commissioned by John Stratford, 1st Earl Aldborough (1691-1777) the sideboard tables are estimated at £250,000-400,000.
The pair show a taste for the neo-Palladian designs of the early eighteenth century ‘slab-tables’ as promoted by William Kent and his follower John Vardy. The use in this instance of more slender mahogany tops is not only an idiosyncratic feature of Irish furniture of this date but also of the advanced style being promoted by Thomas Chippendale in the 1762 edition of his The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director. The Greek-key and juxtaposed voluted legs of the present tables closely relate to a pair of pier tables and mirrors supplied to the Rt. Hon. Thomas and Lady Louisa Conolly for the Green Drawing Room at Castletown House, Ireland and thought to have been supplied by Richard Cranfield in 1767-68 where his work is listed in the Castletown Account books.
John Stratford was a prominent Irish politician in the first half of the eighteenth century who entered the Irish House of Commons as MP for Baltinglass in 1721. He became in succession High Sheriff for Kildare, Wicklow and Wexford before being raised to Baron Baltinglass in 1763, Viscount Aldborough in 1776 and Earl Aldborough in 1777.

UPDATE:  SOTHEBY’S HAVE ANNOUNCED THAT THESE LOTS HAVE BEEN WITHDRAWN FROM THE AUCTION.  They were withdrawn following a private sale prior to the auction for an undisclosed sum.

This Cork longcase clock by Mangans made 6,200.

THIS antique longcase clock by Mangan’s of Cork sold for 6,200 at auction in Macroom. It was the top lot at the Sherry FitzGerald Hinchion sale of contents from the Convent of Mercy.  The clock had been in the convent for at least a century.

There is a long history of clockmaking in Cork city.  A tall clock on a kerbside pedestal made by Mangans has been a landmark on Patrick St., the city’s main thoroughfare, since the 1850’s.  It used to mark Mangan’s Jewellers, founded in 1817, and one of the best known shops on the street. It continued in business until the 1980’s.  Craftsmen from Mangans built the four faced clock on the church steeple at Shandon, one of the city’s most famous landmarks.