David Garrick, actor and manager of the Drury Lane Theatre, employed Thomas Chippendale to supply the furniture for his country villa retreat on the banks of the river Thames at Hampton. This dressing table, described in the 1779 inventory as a 'Lady's Commode Toylet with Glass, Boxes and Partitions, Drawers etc. complete . . .', was made for the best dressing room. The chinoiserie decoration is painted green on an ivory ground and embellished with Neo-Classical motifs.
Although it is only painted pine, a relatively cheap wood even in the eighteenth century, such pieces of furniture were surprisingly expensive. Mrs Garrick, for example, objected in a letter to Chippendale that 'all those things which were Painted Green and white . . are almost doubly charged for Painting only to what they have cost me originaly'. It seems that the expense lay in the painting , which must have been a highly skilled process. The painted decoration is indeed particularly striking and the whole is still in beautiful condition.
Lady's Dressing Table
c.1775
Anglesey Abbey, The Fairhaven Collection (The National Trust)
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