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Lot Essay
With its maritime ornament and paired dolphins, this table must surely have been commisioned as part of an extremely complex and carefully thought out decorative scheme of considerable grandeur and prominent maritime allusions. Although the most obvious candidate is arguably the Grand Dauphin, the lack of Royal arms, cyphers, crowns or fleur-de-lys may preclude this possibility. A strong alternative, therefore, may be Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, comte de Toulouse. The illegitimate son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan (1687-1737), Toulouse was elected Admiral de France in 1683 at the age of five. He took this role extremely seriously, and indeed maritime ornament is a recurring feature amongst his patronage (see D. Alcouffe et al., Furniture Collections in the Louvre, Dijon, 1993, no. 31, pp.102-5). As Alcouffe remarked, this maritime ornament corresponded closely with the decoration of the Galerie Dorée at the hôtel de Toulouse in Paris (now the Banque de France), which was designed for the Prince by Robert de Cotte, architect, and François-Antoine Vassé, dessinateur Général de la Marine Royale, between 1717-18. The lack of an anchor amongst the carved decoration is, however, unusual for the Admiral de France's patronage.
THE ORNAMENT
The table, designed in the Louis XIV Roman fashion appropriate for a marble buffet, has its frame flowered with a lozenge-trallised mosaic recalling the coffering of Rome's Temple of Venus. In addition, the nature-deitys triumphal water-birth is recalled by embowed dolphins guarding her water-dripping shell-carriage, which embellishes the herm-tapered pilasters, and water from the friezes shell cartouches drips on the flowered stretcher-tray.
One such fruit-decked table features in a portrait of Louis XIV and his family executed by Nicolas de Largillière (d.1746) (T.Cox, Général Guide to the Wallace Collection, 1933, pl. 32).
THE ORNAMENT
The table, designed in the Louis XIV Roman fashion appropriate for a marble buffet, has its frame flowered with a lozenge-trallised mosaic recalling the coffering of Rome's Temple of Venus. In addition, the nature-deitys triumphal water-birth is recalled by embowed dolphins guarding her water-dripping shell-carriage, which embellishes the herm-tapered pilasters, and water from the friezes shell cartouches drips on the flowered stretcher-tray.
One such fruit-decked table features in a portrait of Louis XIV and his family executed by Nicolas de Largillière (d.1746) (T.Cox, Général Guide to the Wallace Collection, 1933, pl. 32).