Beschreibung:

Y  A FINE GEORGE II MAHOGANY, BRASS AND MOTHER OF PEARL INLAID TRIPOD TABLE
ATTRIBUTED TO FREDERICK HINTZ, CIRCA 1745
With a dished tilt top
71cm high, 58cm diameter
Provenance:
Property of a Private British Collector
Acquired from Jeremy Ltd., November 1996
See Christopher Gilbert & Tessa Murdoch, John Channon and brass-inlaid furniture 1730-1760, Yale, p.118, pl. 153 and pl. 154 for tables with near identical inlay to the table top, and table base respectively.
This exceptional brass and mother of pearl inlaid mahogany tripod tea table is attributed to the German cabinet maker, Frederick Hintz (d. 1772) who worked at the sign of 'The Porcupine' in Newport Street, Leicester Fields, London. The table is one of a rare though distinct group of similarly shaped and inlaid tables of very high quality, which have between 8 and 12 'lobes' and which are particularly associated with a community of émigré craftsmen resident in London. The table offered here is notable for the use of exotic mother of pearl, a scare and precious material at the time. A number of these tables featured in the 1993 exhibition, John Channon and brass inlaid furniture 1730-1760 at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The definitive work on this form is 'John Channon and Brass inlaid Furniture' by Christopher Gilbert and Tessa Murdoch, in which related examples are illustrated and it is noted that only thirty four such brass inlaid tables have ever been recorded.
Hintz was born in 1711 in Settin, a town in former East Germany. By 1737 he was living in London and as a member of the Moravian Church, a protestant religious movement that grew in Germany and England during the mid 18th century comprising communities of craftsmen, he worked under the auspices of the church. He is known as a maker of stringed musical instruments and records show that in 1748 he made a harpsichord for the Moravian Chapel in Fetter Lane. He was also, as recorded in a 1738 advertisement discovered by the furniture historian, R.W. Symonds, a maker of 'Desks and Book-Cases of mahogany, Tea-Tables, Tea-Chests, and Tea-Boards etc. all curiously made and inlaid with fine figures of brass and mother of pearl. At the same time other German cabinet makers working in London included Abraham Roentgen, with whom Hintz appears to have had a close professional relationship (they travelled to Germany together in June 1738). Tables that can be attributed to Hintz are in the Victoria & Albert Museum, acquisition no. W.3-1965, and another formerly in the collection of the Duchess of Roxburghe, illustrated in Ralph Edwards, Dictionary of English Furniture, vol. III, p. 207, fig.15.'
A closely related table attributed to Hintz was sold at Christies London, 22nd September 2022, property of a Lady, lot 33 ( £100,800 including premium). Another was sold Phillips, London, 10 February 1998, Lot 78 (£85,000 hammer), and another with an unusual base of anthropomorphic legs with brass-inlaid shoe feet sold Sotheby's, New York, 26 May 2000, Lot 196 ($280,750 including premium). Another smaller table, was sold in these rooms from the collection of Sir Michael Smurfit, 1st Dec 2021, lot 192 ( £24,375 including premium).