CIRCA 1820, PROBABLY NAPLES

This gueridon closely relates to a small carved table with very similar swan monopodia supports in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence, presently exhibited in the Queen’s study (E. Colle, I Mobili di Palazzo Pitti: Il secondo period lorenese 1800-1846, Florence, 2000, p. 162). The Palazzo Pitti example belongs to a distinct group, of which three examples were produced in Lucca in Tuscany. In 1815, this comparable table was first recorded as, ‘un piccolo tavolino d'albero da lavoro di figura triagona, con piano e cassetta sostenuta da tre cigni tinti color bronzo , e in parte dorati, e stanno in logo di piedi’ [a small triangular work table with undertier supported by three bronzed with parcel-gilt swans, on paw feet]. As the present example is in patinated bronze with a porphyry top it is yet more luxurious than the Palazzo Pitti table but undoubtedly was modelled to the same antique design. A pattern issued by Percier and Fontaine in their Recueil de Décorations intérieures (1801), p. XIX, and a design for a ‘Lavoir’ issued by La Méssangère in his Collection de meubles et objets de goût (1831), no. 82, may possibly be the source.