BY JOHNSTONE, JUPE & CO., CIRCA 1835-40

In March 1835, Robert Jupe, upholsterer of 47 Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square, patented a design for 'an improved expanding table so constructed that the sections composing its surface may be caused to diverge from a common center and that the spaces caused thereby may be filled up by inserting leaves or filling pieces'. The first examples were produced between 1835 and 1840 in partnership with John Johnstone of New Bond Street and were stamped Johnstone, Jupe & Co.London. By 1840 Robert Jupe had left the partnership to form his own firm in Welbeck Street, and his name alone usually appears on later tables with this mechanism. This table is particularly remarkable as the two different sized sets of leaves survive and is accompanied by a mahogany case with the stamp of retailer Maple & Co. that stores them.

Related tables stamped Johnstone and Jupe include one sold anonymously at Christie's, London, 17 March 2011, lot 48 (£115,250) , another sold anonymously at Sotheby's, London 6 July 2011 lot 116 (£121,250) and a third example sold at Phillips, London, 19 November 2014, lot 193 (£122,500).