A pair of George III ormolu mounted kingwood and tulipwood concertina action card tables attributed to Christopher Fuhrlohg.

Note: The tables retain their original ormolu mounts.

The famous sale in 1848 of the contents of Stowe House, Buckinghamshire, lasted forty days and included some 4,000 items. It included four pairs of card tables and a single card table.

Our card tables were not listed in the sale of 1848. They may have been in the Duke of Buckingham’s London residence or simply excluded from the sale.

Lot 860 was ‘a pair of card tables, of inlaid wood lined with cloth, to Mr. Duncan esq. £2 s0 d0’. The remaining card tables (lot 1416, a single card table; lot 2139, a pair of card tables; lot 2328, a pair of card tables; and lot 2721, a pair of card tables) were all made of mahogany.

Mr. Duncan was either an agent for or himself a member of the family, because the pair that he bought remained in the family until they were eventually sold by descendants of the 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos for £150,000 in 1999. The same tables were again offered for sale in 2008, and by then their price estimate at Sotheby’s in New York had risen to $500,000-$700,000. That pair and ours share exactly the same outline and are also constructed in an identical fashion, being fitted with concertina actions. Our pair of card tables differ only in having extravagant ormolu mounts and brass inlay in contrast to marquetry inlay on the other pair.