Paxton House was built by Patrick Home between 1759 and 1763, most likely to designs by John and James Adam. When Patrick Home succeeded to the Wedderburn estates in 1766, Paxton was sold to his cousin Ninian Home who undertook completing the interiors.
LOT 128 | PAIR OF GEORGE III MAHOGANY, SATINWOOD, FRUITWOOD AND PENWORK CARD TABLES
Between 1774 and 1791, Thomas Chippendale and his son were commissioned to furnish the house. With Ninian Home spending most of his time on his plantation in the West Indies, there doesn’t seem to have been any rush to complete the job, with things proceeding at a leisurely pace after the initial phase commenced in 1774. In a letter of instruction to Thomas Chippendale, Ninian requests furniture that is ‘done in a neat but not an expensive manner’. The furniture supplied was generally speaking true to that direction and of a simple and practical nature, unlike the other great Chippendale commission, the grander Dumfries House, to which Paxton is often compared. Paxton now ranks as a major documented Chippendale house. Letters between patron and cabinet-maker cover a span of at least fifteen years. The archive of correspondence between Ninian Home and Haig and Chippendale is an invaluable aid in demonstrating the level of involvement between client and furniture maker, and the extant invoices supplied by Haig and Chippendale offer a rare insight into the costs of such a commission. Since Paxton and Wedderburn have remained in the same family, the Chippendale furniture was left largely in situ, although over the years there has been some interchange of furniture between houses and family members.
This pair of satinwood tables were at one time attributed to Thomas Chippendale and displayed for many years at Paxton as such. Research into the archives has now determined they cannot be accredited to Chippendale, but were made by another, unknown maker, however no bills from other cabinet-makers are known to exist in the archive.
douglas.girton@lyonandturnbull.com