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Lot Essay
These 'gueridon' corner-tables for vase and candelabra incorporate bacchic veil-draped urns standing on Jupiter's thunderbolts. They are conceived as Roman tripod-altars, with bacchante and satyr masks embellishing their legs and lambrequined drums, while their tops are decorated in the Roman manner popularised by Jean Bérain (d. 1711), 'dessinateur de la chambre et du cabinet du roi'. They feature a laurel-hung cartouche of Roman acanthus and celebrate Lyric poetry with their pastoral trophies of rustic pipes and musical instruments accompanying Eastern revellers. The latter, who dance and drum beneath a baldachino, stand on a ribboned pedestal bearing Apollo's mask as poetry deity.
This table design was invented for the Versailles Ménagerie that was designed in the 1660s by Louis Le Vau (d. 1670), Architect du Roi. The Ménagerie, which housed exotic 'East Indian' birds and faced the Trianon de Porcelaine across the Petit Parc's Grand Canal, formed part of the Isle Enchantée where entertainments and Fêtes Galantes served to celebrate France's triumph and that of Louis XIV as Sun King. The original tables were commissioned by Louis XIV for the Ménagerie at the time of its occupation in 1701 by the Duchesse de Bourgogne, and were executed at the Louvre workshops controlled by the celebrated ébéniste du roi, André-Charles Boulle (d. 1732), whose related Nouveaux Deisseins de Meubles et Ouvrages de Bronze et de Marqueterie were issued by Mariette in 1707 (A. Pradère, French Furniture Makers, The Art of the Ebéniste from Louis XIV to the Revolution, Tours, 1989, p. 69, pl. 15).
The Longleat tables derive from a pair of tables of the same model which were probably exhibited in the 1853 Exhibition at Gore House, Kensington, and again in 1862 at the South Kensington Museum, before entering the collection of John Jones (d. 1882), whose collection was formed on behalf of the South Kensington Museum, now the Victoria and Albert Museum (O. Bracket, Catalogue of the Jones Collection, 1922, p. 6; museum no. 1015&a - 1882). A further pair, also 19th Century copies, was sold by the Earl of Rosebery from Mentmore Towers, Sotheby's House sale, 18-20 May 1977, lot 127. A pair of tables of this model, either 18th Century in date or early 19th Century and from the collection of hte late Lord Gwydir, Grimsthorpe castle, ws sold in these Rooms, 11 March 1829, lot 91.
This table design was invented for the Versailles Ménagerie that was designed in the 1660s by Louis Le Vau (d. 1670), Architect du Roi. The Ménagerie, which housed exotic 'East Indian' birds and faced the Trianon de Porcelaine across the Petit Parc's Grand Canal, formed part of the Isle Enchantée where entertainments and Fêtes Galantes served to celebrate France's triumph and that of Louis XIV as Sun King. The original tables were commissioned by Louis XIV for the Ménagerie at the time of its occupation in 1701 by the Duchesse de Bourgogne, and were executed at the Louvre workshops controlled by the celebrated ébéniste du roi, André-Charles Boulle (d. 1732), whose related Nouveaux Deisseins de Meubles et Ouvrages de Bronze et de Marqueterie were issued by Mariette in 1707 (A. Pradère, French Furniture Makers, The Art of the Ebéniste from Louis XIV to the Revolution, Tours, 1989, p. 69, pl. 15).
The Longleat tables derive from a pair of tables of the same model which were probably exhibited in the 1853 Exhibition at Gore House, Kensington, and again in 1862 at the South Kensington Museum, before entering the collection of John Jones (d. 1882), whose collection was formed on behalf of the South Kensington Museum, now the Victoria and Albert Museum (O. Bracket, Catalogue of the Jones Collection, 1922, p. 6; museum no. 1015&a - 1882). A further pair, also 19th Century copies, was sold by the Earl of Rosebery from Mentmore Towers, Sotheby's House sale, 18-20 May 1977, lot 127. A pair of tables of this model, either 18th Century in date or early 19th Century and from the collection of hte late Lord Gwydir, Grimsthorpe castle, ws sold in these Rooms, 11 March 1829, lot 91.