Circular Derbyshire Black Marble Pietra Dura Table - Attributed to Tomlinson

The circular top is inlaid in pietra dura with three delicate butterflies and a circlet of British spring flowers, these include white periwinkles, convolvulus, lily of the valley, fuchsia and forsythia, against a profusion of green leaves, all raised on a turned and gadrooned baluster support with a tripod base. English, circa 1850. Chapter 10 of John Michael Tomlinson’s book Derbyshire Black Marble (Ashbourne, 1996) covers the Ashbourne marble entries from the Art Journal Illustrated Catalogue of the Great Exhibition, 1851. The listing for John Tomlinson, the author’s ancestor, describes a mosaic portrait of Queen Victoria and numerous oblong, circular or octagonal tables. The one illustrated (above right) had the following caption ‘Mr. Tomlinson, of Ashford, Derbyshire, one of the many ingenious manufacturers of the native spars and marbles of the county, contributes, among other articles, the Table here engraved. The stem as well as the top is made of black marble; a wreath of flowers and leaves in their natural colours encircles the top; the table is entirely formed of the spars of Derbyshire.’