Y A GEORGE II MAHOGANY, BRASS AND MOTHER OF PEARL INLAID TRIPOD TABLEATTRIBUTED TO FREDERICK HINTZ, CIRCA 174073.5cm high, the top 62.4cm diameterProvenance: The Collection of Sir Michael Smurfit.This brass and mother of pearl inlaid mahogany tripod tea table is attributed to the German cabinet-maker, Frederick Hintz (d. 1772) who worked at the sign of 'The Porcupine' in Newport Street, Leicester Fields, London. The table is one of a small though distinct group of similarly shaped and inlaid tables, which have between 8 and 12 'lobes' and which are particularly associated with a community of émigré craftsmen resident in London. A number of these tables featured in the 1993 exhibition, John Channon and brass-inlaid furniture 1730-1760 at the Victoria & Albert Museum, alongside other related pieces. While sharing certain common features, this table is notable for the use of exotic mother of pearl, a relatively uncommon material at the time. The definitive work on this form is 'John Channon and Brass inlaid Furniture' by Christopher Gilbert and Tessa Murdoch, in which related examples are illustrated and it is noted that only thirty four such brass inlaid tables have been recorded. Hintz was born in 1711 in Settin, a town in former East Germany. By 1737 he was living in London and as a member of the Moravian Church, a protestant religious movement that grew in Germany and England during the mid-18th century comprising communities of craftsmen, he worked under the auspices of the church. He is known as a maker of stringed musical instruments and, records show that in 1748 he made a harpsichord for the Moravian Chapel in Fetter Lane. He was also, as recorded in a 1738 advertisement discovered by the furniture historian, R.W.Symonds, a maker of 'Desks and Book-Cases of mahogany, Tea-Tables, Tea-Chests, and Tea-Boards etc. all curiously made and inlaid with fine figures of brass and mother of pearl'. At the same time other German cabinet-makers working in London included Abraham Roentgen, with whom Hintz appears to have had a close professional relationship (they travelled to Germany together in June 1738), and the lesser-known maker, Gern.Tables that can be attributed to Hintz are in the Victoria & Albert Museum, museum no. W.3-1965, and another formerly in the collection of the Duchess of Roxburghe, illustrated in Ralph Edwards, Dictionary of English Furniture, vol. III, p. 207, fig. 15.A closely related table, also from a Symonds collection (which also included the celebrated Ashburnham lacquer commodes) was sold anonymously Christie's, London, 16 November 1995, Lot 61 (£67,500 including premium), and another was sold Christie's, London, 3 November 2011, Lot 67 (£79,250 including premium). Another was sold Phillips, London, 10 February 1998, Lot 78 (£85,000 hammer), and another with an idiosyncratic base of anthropomorphic legs with brass-inlaid shoe feet sold Sotheby's, New York, 26 May 2000, Lot 196 ($280,750 including premium).