CONSTRUCTED IN THE 20TH CENTURY, POSSIBLY USING SOME EARLIER ELEMENTS

When sold in 2003, these pedestals were reputed to have come from the magnificent Devonshire House in Piccadilly, London, built for the 3rd Duke of Devonshire between 1733-35 by William Kent. The house was sold by the 8th Duke in 1920 and demolished five years later. While the family kept the furnishings and fitments from the house (sold from Chatsworth by Sotheby's in 2010), it is tempting to ascribe these pedestals as the prototype for the painted pair produced nearly simultaneously (in 1933) on behalf of the decorator Francis Elkins. The latter were placed in the Kersey Coates Reed House, Lake Forest, Illinois (later sold Christie's New York, 27 October 2006, lot 217, $14,400).