Lot Essay
The design for this pair of console tables, each with a superb ormolu-banded 18th-century Sicilian jasper top, may have been inspired by a series of drawings by François Roumier (1701-1748) who was appointed sculpteur ordinaire du roi in 1721 and worked at a number of royal palaces including Versailles. One of his masterpieces is a magnificent carved side table made for the cabinet doré in the private apartments of the King at Versailles in 1737 (illustrated in P. Verlet, Le Mobilier Royal Français, vol. I, No. 20). Roumier also worked for the celebrated chairmaker Jean-Baptiste Tilliard and published a series of influential books of designs. Designs for related consoles appear in Roumier's Livre de Plusieurs Desseins de Pieds de Tables en Consoles (published posthumously in 1750), including an example with frieze cartouche incorporating interlocked L's as on the consoles offered here (see B. Pons, De Paris à Versailles, 1699-1736, 1983, figs. 506-512). Another design book circa 1725, specifically illustrated trophies, some with feathered helmets, for choir-stalls that Roumier was commissioned to execute for the church at the Jacobins in the faubourg St-Germain, Paris. Roumier was so proud of his extravagant trophies for this church that when charged with not following prescribed designs he declared that in the case of trophies '..elaboration is ordinarily left to the taste of the workman who knows how to select and compose them, according to the requirements of the space in which they [are to be] placed.' (see K. Scott, The Rococo Interior: Decoration and Social Spaces in Early Eighteenth-Century Paris, 1995, p. 69).
Another possible source for the design of these remarkable tables may be the work of Nicolas Pineau (1684-1754), an immensely influential designer who worked on a series of important commissions in Paris in the 1730's including the decoration of the hôtel de Roquelaure and the hôtel de Mazarin. Pineau also published designs for consoles similar to the Cummings examples. A console from the collection of Hubert de Givenchy with close similarities to Pineau's oeuvre and also related to the Cummings tables was sold Christie's Monaco, 4 December 1993, lot 83.
Another possible source for the design of these remarkable tables may be the work of Nicolas Pineau (1684-1754), an immensely influential designer who worked on a series of important commissions in Paris in the 1730's including the decoration of the hôtel de Roquelaure and the hôtel de Mazarin. Pineau also published designs for consoles similar to the Cummings examples. A console from the collection of Hubert de Givenchy with close similarities to Pineau's oeuvre and also related to the Cummings tables was sold Christie's Monaco, 4 December 1993, lot 83.