Irish marble side tables may Fetch £200,000 plus

CHRISTIE'S will be selling a number, of items of Irish interest over successive days in London next week. Undoubtedly the most important of these pieces comes up for sale on Thursday when a pair of George II white painted side tables with specimen marble tops are expected to sell for £200,000-£300,000.

Known as the Bellinter Tables, these are believed to have been supplied to the brewer and member of parliament John Preston for the hall at Bellinter House, Co Meath. The house, now owned by a religious order, was designed by Richard Castle it passed out of the hands of the family for whom it was built at the end of the last century.

In the manner of William Kent, the tables are topped with slabs of veined white marble, inlaid with pietra dura and supported on a painted base of an open winged eagle flanked by a pair of dolphins.

Also in the auction is an Irish George II mahogany tea table (estimate £4,000-£6,000), reputed to have come from the Houses of Parliament in Dublin; a set of eight early George III mahogany dining chairs (£2,5,000-£35,000); an Irish George III serpentine mahogany commode (£10,000-£15,000); and an Irish mahogany pedestal sideboard (£3,000-£5,000).

Earlier in the week, on Tuesday, Christie's will be selling a number of miniatures of Irish interest, all of them relating to the Ormsby and Gore families. On Wednesday, in the auction house's South Kensington premises, an Irish Edwardian inlaid mahogany bureau bookcase made by Butlers of Dublin is expected to fetch £3,000-£5,000.