Footnotes

• Provenance: Sir Dirk Bogarde (1921-1999)
  
  The above lot was in the possession of the celebrated British actor Dirk Bogarde until his death in 1999.
  
  A few months after returning from Army service in World War Two, the 25-year-old Dirk Bogarde was spotted while appearing in a small London theatre and given a contract with the Rank Organisation. His career flourished and, after playing Simon Sparrow in ‘Doctor in the House’ (1954), he became Britain’s biggest box-office draw and favoured leading man. In the early 1960s, frustrated by the limitations of the studio system and uncomfortable as a matinee idol, Bogarde broke free and, beginning with Basil Dearden’s ‘Victim’ (1961), embarked on a number of complex, demanding roles which brought him creative satisfaction as well as a welcome change of image. During the next two decades he became established as one of cinema’s most important and intelligent talents, in Joseph Losey’s ‘The Servant’ (1963), ‘King and Country’ (1964) and ‘Accident’ (1967), John Schlesinger’s ‘Darling’ (1965), Luchino Visconti’s ‘The Damned’ (1970) and ‘Death in Venice’ (1971), Liliana Cavani’s ‘The Night Porter’ (1974) and Alain Resnais’ ‘Providence’ (1978). In the late 1970s he began a second career as a writer. From 1977 to 1998 he produced fifteen books, including an acclaimed series of autobiographies and six novels.
  
  Bogarde’s appreciation of beauty, both man-made and natural, was recognised by many of his friends and associates, and was reflected in the succession of large country houses in which he lived during the 1950s and 1960s. These included Beel House and Drummers Yard in Buckinghamshire, Nore in Surrey and Adam’s Farm in Sussex, all homes befitting a film star, and comparable to the Beverly Hills mansions of Bogarde’s American counterparts. They helped him to maintain his status as the leading British screen actor of the period, and became sanctuary for many stars working at nearby studios or visiting England.
  
  
  It is not known for which of Bogarde’s houses this tabletop, mounted as a coffee table, was purchased, but it is visible in photographs of Nore, where he lived from 1962 to 1965. The table was then moved to all of his subsequent homes, most notably his beloved Clermont, the Provençal former farmhouse where he lived from 1970 until 1986. Over the years that the table was in his possession many leading figures from the entertainment world will more than likely have sat around it, including Losey and Schlesinger, Ingrid Bergman, Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand, Vivien Leigh, Natalie Wood, Robert Wagner, Richard Attenborough, Charlotte Rampling and Elton John. Bogarde’s final visitor, on the eve of his sudden death in May 1999, was Lauren Bacall who came for tea at his London flat.
  
  Specimen Marbles
  
  The decorative qualities of marble have been admired since antiquity, with the Greeks mining extensively for white Pentelicus marble for use in sculpture and architecture, while the Romans favoured the naturally polychromatic types, found in the Gallic territories. It was not until the early 18th century that the use of marble in tabletops became familiar in the fashionable homes of the English aristocracy. The tops also included minerals such as lapis lazuli, glass and aventurine. English travellers who embarked on a Grand Tour wished to acquire beautifully hand-crafted and unusual pieces that reflected the glories of the classical world as seen on their travels. Micro-mosaic tops from the Florentine workshops were also popular 'souvenir' pieces and the above lot combines the two techniques. Similar table tops without micro-mosaic roundels, thought to be late 18th century, were bought by the 1st Duke of Wellington, two of which were mounted on stands attributable to George Bullock and remain at Stratfield Saye.

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Category: Furniture / Fine Furniture and Works of Art

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