The Sea Dog Table in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 2022

Category: Furniture

Date: circa 1570

Materials: Walnut, gilding, fruitwood, tulipwood, marble

Measurements: 85 x 147 x 85 cm

Place of origin: Paris

Collection: Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire

NT 1127744


Elaborate, fantastical and exquisitely carved, this eye-catching table is one of the best surviving examples of Elizabethan furniture in the National Trust collections. It was commissioned from one of Europe’s top craftspeople working in Paris. The highly unusual design features four carved ‘sea dogs’ – fantasy creatures with a dog’s head, scaly breasts, wings and dolphin tails. It was purchased for display at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, the home of George Talbot (c.1522–90), 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, and his wife Elizabeth (known as Bess of Hardwick) in the 1570s.

The quality of the piece, the striking design of the sea dogs and the Italian marble inlay would have made it a talking point for the couple’s visitors. The earl had responsibility for Mary Queen of Scots, who was under house arrest in his home, so this table would almost certainly have been known and admired by her. After the marriage ended c.1584, Bess took the coveted table and it later furnished her new home, Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, where it remains.


Full description

Almost certainly made in Paris, by an unidentified craftsman, the design of this richly-ornamented, gilded and carved draw–leaf table is highly reminiscent of an engraving of c.1565-70 by the French Court architect Jacques Androuet du Cerceau (1510-1584), which illustrates three differing designs for seadogs – imaginary and fantastical creatures combining dogs’ heads with garlanded necks, breasted winged bodies and dolphins’ tails. Du Cerceau’s other published pattern books of furniture ornament also inspired details for the lion mask, fruit swags and rosettes on the carved frieze. Possibly used during the banqueting course at the end of a meal - it can be dismantled into seventeen pieces and easily moved - the top is inlaid with various woods in arabesque patterns and panels of Italian marble, despite the fact that it was originally covered with a valuable textile: the 1601 inventory in which the table is first recorded describes it as 'a drawing table Carved and guilt standing upon, sea doges inlayde with marble stones and wood, a Carpet for it of nedleworke of the story of David and Saule with a gold fringe and trimmed with blewe taffetie sarcenet.' This textile would have been removed when the table was in use.

One of the most significant pieces of 16th century furniture to survive in England, it is the only piece of furniture currently at Hardwick which can unequivocally identified in the inventory of 1601. It is thought to have been originally acquired for 'Old' Chatsworth, the house built by Elizabeth, Lady Cavendish [‘Bess of Hardwick’] from 1549 onwards with her second husband Sir William Cavendish (1508-1557), later enlarged and enriched during her two subsequent marriages including to George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury in 1567. Shrewsbury may have acquired the table through Mary, Queen of Scots whose incarceration, on the command of Elizabeth I, was his responsibility from 1568 – 1584. Mary is known to have sent one of her valets de chambre, Ange Marie, to France to secure furniture late in 1570, and in 1577 corresponded about procuring beds and candlesticks from Paris for Shrewsbury. Equally, however, Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury could have acquired French gilded furniture on her own account. Following the breakdown of the Shrewsbury’s marriage it is assumed that the table was removed from Chatsworth and taken to Bess’ new house, Hardwick Hall, built between 1590 and 1599.

The symbolism of the sea dog design would have been apparent to an Elizabethan audience – the term being applied most famously to Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins who, with the permission and connivance of Elizabeth I, were engaged in attacking and looting Spanish ships, as well as slave trading. A contemporary engraving of 1576 depicts Queen Elizabeth I seated on a throne supported by seadogs, the use of this imagery suggesting both the monarch’s reliance upon such men and through them her dominion over the sea.


Text from: www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1127744