A William IV ormolu-mounted cast-iron Italian specimen marble top center table, the marble top by Giacomo Raffaelli dated 1831

The Hon. John and Lady Augusta Kennedy-Erskine
Thence by descent, in 1856 to the Lairds of Dun, House of Dun, Angus, Scotland until 1973

The marble top in very good condition, with some minor chips to marble at edges and with light wear and rubbing to the surface. The table base slightly wobbly at top but sturdy. Beautifully cast and chased with some minor pitting and with some small dents to legs and feet. The metal frieze with some dents to the beaded rim.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This table was acquired from Giacomo Raffaelli on March 8, 1831 by The Hon. John and Lady Augusta Kennedy-Erskine.  Lady Kennedy-Erskine was born Augusta Fitzclarence and was of the illegitimate daughters of the Duke of Clarence, later William IV.  She and Kennedy-Irskine married on July 5, 1827 and went to Italy for John's health in 1831 before he suffered from consumption, and died in Pisa later that year.  John had inherited the House of Dun and the estate from his maternal grandfather.  After Augusta died in 1865, the table remained in family by descent to the Lairds of Dun, House of Dun, Angus, Scotland from 1865 to 1973.  This famous house was designed and built by William Adam, father of the famous Robert and James Adam, and is known for its spectacular plasterwork.

Raffaelli provided a detailed description of all of the marbles together with a key (fig. 1) with this table top.  Of the 148 specimens used for the table top, 40 are pietre dure, 31 are Oriental, 12 are antique, 7 are Egyptian, 5 are Chinese, 4 are German, 2 are Siberian, one each is from Damascus (Breccia Traccagnina), France (Marmo Rosso conchite), Labrador (feld-Spato Poaline bleu), Persia (Lapis Lazuli), and Scotland (Pudinga); the remaining specimens are from Italy and Greece.  A manuscript key also accompanies a pair of tables by Raffaelli which are now on display at Temple Newsam House (Christopher Gilbert, Furniture at Temple Newsam House, Leeds, 1988, Vol III, no 857, pp. 681-684, color figs 18-20).  These tables were acquired by Clifford Constable of Burton Constable, Yorkshire, almost certainly on his honeymoon in 1827.

Giacomo Raffaelli (1743 - 1836) was probably the most talented mosaicist in Rome during the last quarter of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. He was one of the first, if not the first, to have worked in "mosaico in piccolo", or micromosaic in about 1775. This new technique permitted the meticulous virtuosity that was so coveted by the connoisseurs of the neo-classic era. Raffaelli, was certainly regarded as the supreme craftsman in this technique, and worked not only for the papacy but also for foreign courts, like that of Stanislaus Poniatowski in Poland. He was invited to Russia by the imperial government but refused, accepting instead an invitation to the Milanese court of Napoleon, where his technical mastery was particularly appreciated, where he produced his masterpiece - the monumental Centrepiece of the Viceroy, now in the Villa Carlotta - and some immense enterprises such as the mosaic mural copy of Leonardo's Last Supper, now in the Minoretenkirche in Vienna.  Raffaelli stayed in Milan even after the fall of the Napoleonic Empire (1814), but he eventually returned to Rome. In 1826, he is mentioned as "lodatissimo fra i lodati" ("most praised among the praised") who had made a tabletop in grisaille with the shield of Achilles with the head of Medusa in the center.  Two clocks by him were presented by Napoleon as gifts, the first, signed by Raffaelli and dated 1804, to Maréchal Bernadotte and the other to Pope Pius VII, which is now in the Chateau de Fontainebleau.  Pope Pius later offered to Princess Eugenié a comparable table, which is now in the Hotel Matignon.  Other objects by Raffaelli are at Syon House, Middlesex and in the Gilbert Collection at Somerset House, London.