ATTRIBUTED TO ROBERT HUME, CIRCA 1815

This ebony table can be firmly attributed to the work of carver, gilder, cabinet-maker and dealer, Robert Hume Senior, who is recorded in various London addresses from 1808-1840. He specialised primarily in furniture decorated with hardstones and pietre dure. William Beckford, alongside King George IV, was one of his greatest patrons and commissioned many pieces of furniture for Fonthill Abbey and later for Lansdown Tower. Such was the closeness of their relationship, that Beckford wrote in March 1819, 'Almost every day now I see Hume, and seeing him one sees objects of curiosity, and seeing them one always thinks them desirable; then one gives little commissions, and then one makes little purchases, and so piling up debts and deficits one marches towards an abyss as black as Death!' (Bet McLeod, 'A Celebrated Collector', Ed. Derek E. Ostergard, William Beckford, 1760-1844: An Eye for the Magnificent, New Haven and London, 2002, pp. 169-170.
This table bears striking similarities to the bases of a pair of display cabinets, purchased by George Hammond Lucy in the legendary Fonthill Abbey Sale (lots 1297-1298) and now at Charlecote Park (NT 533018). It not inconceivable that the present table once also formed part of the Beckford Hume commission; included in the thirtieth day's sale on 18 October 1823, there are seven tables listed as 'An ebony table, on carved legs with enrichments in or-molu'.