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Lot Essay
This exquisite table exemplifies the flourishing popularity of marquetry furniture in late 18th century St. Petersburg and is a prime example of the oeuvre on Danish-born cabinet-maker Christian Meyer. With its distinctive marquetry-decorated and kidney-shaped top as well as its elegant octagonal tapering legs, with each facet alternating in contrasting veneers, it belongs to a small group of documented tables that have been attributed to Meyer, undoubtedly the foremost St Petersburg cabinet-maker of the late 18th century and direct supplier to the Imperial Court. Four closely related tables of this model remain in the museums of St Petersburg, including one, with very similar marquetry decoration, at the State Hermitage Museum.
The particular decoration of this table reflects the ‘English style’ marquetry favoured by Meyer and indeed his main patron, Catherine the Great, and Dr Semenova’s recent research has identified ornamental engravings by Michael Angelo Pergolesi as one of the main sources for his marquetry designs. Meyers work was first analysed in the 1970s by Dr Burkhardt Göres and it is with the help of the more recent research led by Drs. Tatyana Semenova and Iraida Bott, Curators at the Hermitage Museum and Tsarskoye Selo respectively, that a firm attribution to this cabinet-maker can be made for some of the most accomplished late 18th Century Russian neoclassical marquetry furniture (see T. Semenova, ‘Christian Meÿer, a Marquetry Master from Saint Petersburg’, in Furniture History Society Journal, vol XLVII (2011), pp. 125-150).
The particular decoration of this table reflects the ‘English style’ marquetry favoured by Meyer and indeed his main patron, Catherine the Great, and Dr Semenova’s recent research has identified ornamental engravings by Michael Angelo Pergolesi as one of the main sources for his marquetry designs. Meyers work was first analysed in the 1970s by Dr Burkhardt Göres and it is with the help of the more recent research led by Drs. Tatyana Semenova and Iraida Bott, Curators at the Hermitage Museum and Tsarskoye Selo respectively, that a firm attribution to this cabinet-maker can be made for some of the most accomplished late 18th Century Russian neoclassical marquetry furniture (see T. Semenova, ‘Christian Meÿer, a Marquetry Master from Saint Petersburg’, in Furniture History Society Journal, vol XLVII (2011), pp. 125-150).