Lot 44: - A pair of George III satinwood card tables Irish, circa 1790, attributed to William Moore of Dublin

74cm. high, 108cm. wide, 54cm. deep; 2ft. 5¼in., 3ft. 6½in., 1ft. 9¼in.

Desmond Guiness and William Ryan, Irish Houses and Castles, London, 1971, p.69, showing the tables in situ in the Drawing Room at Bantry House.

Almost certainly acquired by Simon White for Bantry House, Co. Cork and thence by descent.

The style of the marquetry on this pair of games tables leads to an attribution to the London-trained Irish cabinet-maker William Moore of Dublin. Possibly the son of William Moore, a cabinet maker recorded at Inns Quay and Charles Street, who died in 1759, he appears to have attended the School of Landscape and Ornament Drawing at the Dublin Society of Drawing Schools in 1768, after which he was employed in the workshop of John Mayhew and William Ince, before returning to Ireland at some time before December 1777. In 1782 Moore placed an advertisement in Faulkener's, Dublin Journal, addressed 'To the Nobility and Gentry' informing 'those that may want inlaid work'....that....'he has brought the manufacture of such perfection to be able to sell for almost one half its original prices; as the greatest demand is for pier Tables, he has just finished in the newest taste a great variety of patterns, sizes and prices......card tables of new construction...also small pier tables with every article in the inlaid way'.