The Denton Park Library Table

The Denton Park Library Table is based on a design by Thomas Chippendale. It was commissioned by Sir James Ibbetson of Denton Hall, Otley, Yorkshire, in 1778. The Ibbetsons were a prosperous family of Leeds clothiers. Sir James augmented his already considerable fortune by his marriage to a Halifax heiress, Jane Caygill. He demolished the old Denton Hall and commissioned a new Palladian mansion from John Carr of York (1723-1807). The furnishing of the house was lavish: Thomas Chippendale supplied most of it - his only commission in the parish in which he was born - while Gillows was one of two other firms who received a large part of the commission. Gillow supplied some pieces from stock, but two major items, the library table and a billiards table, were specially commissioned.

Richard Gillow had been one of the subscribers to the first edition of Thomas Chippendale's The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director of 1754. In his preface, Chippendale suggested "that if no one Drawing should singly answer the Gentleman's Taste, there will yet be found a Variety of Hints, sufficient to construct a new one." Twenty-three years after the publication of The Director, Ibbetson commissioned Gillows to make the library table based on one of the designs. Chippendale considered the design old-fashioned, and had excluded it from the 1762 edition of The Director. While the Gillows commission reflects the conservative taste of country patrons, it also illustrates the way in which The Director was used by its purchasers.

This library table is the earliest known piece by Gillows with a complete provenance. Letters survive in the firm's comprehensive archives detailing how the patron was consulted throughout the commission. By October 17, 1778 the table is described as "in hand," and it was delivered before January 15, 1779. It was invoiced on September 23, 1778: "a large & Handsome Mahogany Library Table in the Comode Shape with eight draws on one Side, two on the other, two Cupboards & Draw in the Centre one of which drawers is a Writing Drawer with six shaped Covers & two Private draws also a Carved Truss & Pattera upon each Cant Likewise four Carved Brackets £22 10s 0d."

The contents of Denton Hall passed to Sir James' granddaughter, Laura Wyvill, after the death of her dissolute brother, Sir Charles. The Wyvill family continued to live at Denton Hall until the turn of the century, when they moved to the Wyvill ancestral seat, Constable Burton Hall, another Carr house, at Leyburn in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Most of the Denton Hall furniture was dispersed in a sale at Constable Burton in 1932.