A PAIR OF ROMAN GILTWOOD PIER TABLES

LAST QUARTER 18TH CENTURY

Details

A PAIR OF ROMAN GILTWOOD PIER TABLES
Last quarter 18th Century
Each with a later brown and grey striated alabaster top above an egg-and-dart moulding and a frieze with a pair of ribbon-tied ram skulls flanking a round beaded portrait medallion, all draped with swagged husks, above a guilloche moulding and acanthus-scrolled apron below the medallion, the sides with a conforming ram mask, the corners each with a laurel-crowned rams head above tapering cabriole legs, carved with husks to the front and acanthus to the reverse, on hoof feet, one inscribed in chalk to the underside '21 PARK ST', minor restorations and refreshments to the gilding and decoration, one with later cross-support beneath the marble, possibly slightly reduced in depth with consequential replacements to underframe, both later marble tops with restored breaks, restorations
34 in. (86.5 cm.) high; 51 in. (132.5 cm.) wide; 26 in. (66 cm.) deep (2)

Provenance

Sir Arthur du Cros, 21 Park Street, London until 1957.

Lot Essay

This medallion-centred pier-table with its festive buccrania-hung frieze and acanthus-wrapped ram-monopodia typifies the Roman style promoted by the artist/architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi (d.1778) and relates to a chimera-supported table which he designed for the Quirinale apartments of Cardinal Rezzonico, to whom he dedicated his pattern book Le Diverse Maniere d'adonare i camini, 1769 (see J. Wilton-Ely, 'Reflections on Piranesi as a Furniture Designer', Furniture History, 1990, pp.191-8)

A closely related table, with almost identical Caesar medallion centering the arabesque frieze and hoof-footed legs with flowered volutes and nymph heads, displayed at the Capitoline Museum, Rome, is illustrated in A. Gonzalez-Palacios, Il Tempio des Gusto, vol. II, Milan, 1984, fig. 152

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