LOT DETAILS

Materials:

White Painted Plywood, the front and sides applied with mouldings to form gothic tracery, now silvered, and the open back fitted with two frieze drawers

Measurements:

31.69 in. (80.50 cm.) (height) by 77.95 in. (198.00 cm.) (width) by 25.20 in. (64.00 cm.) (width)

Literature:

Photographed with the Duchess and illustrated, Deborah Devonshire, Wait for Me, London, 2010, section 4, illustration no. 7;. Charlotte Mosley, The World of Interiors, ‘Debo’s Delights’, September 2010, p. 82 in the Dining Room where it was used by the Duchess as a desk.

Provenance:

Commissioned from the architect Philip Jebb (1927-1995) by Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire (1920-2014) for the Orangery shop at Chatsworth. This highly functional piece followed the Duchess from Chatsworth to the Old Vicarage, Edensor. The white gloss finish lent itself perfectly to the decorative scheme employed in the new Dining Room, which consisted of white gloss walls with borders of silver fillet; especially as the Duchess had the mouldings on this counter silvered. The fact that this former shop counter joined important William Kent furniture in her new dining room illustrates a typically playful style of decorating by the Duchess, mixing the important with the everyday and highly functional, whilst utilising all at her disposal when it came to furnishing her new home.