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Lot Essay
Combining rich gilt-bronze with Algerian onyx-marble this table is exemplary of the luxuriant furniture and objects made during the Second Empire. Onyx-marble had been known since antiquity and used by both the ancient Egyptian and Roman civilizations. However it was not until the 1840s, when under French rule, the quarries near Constantine in Algeria, abandoned since antiquity, were rediscovered. Alphonse Pallu et Cie presented the stone at the Exhibition of Algerian Products in Paris in 1860 and established the Compagnie des Marbres Onyx d'Algérie, which, with the sculptors Eugène Cornu and Charles Cordier (who both owned marble and onyx mines in Algeria) and the bronziers Christofle and G. Viot, created onyx and bronze objects for display at the 1862 London and 1867 Paris International Exhibitions.
Commissions for onyx marble were received for the Château de Ferrières and the Hôtel de La Païva, and the coroneted cypher to the frieze of this table suggests an equally prestigious provenance. The greatest use of ribbon-veined onyx-marble is however at the Garnier Opéra where it is employed to magnificent effect in the sweeping balustrades and sculptural candelabra by Cordier and Carrier-Belleuse, with galvanoplastie bronzework by Christofle.
The Compagnie des Marbres Onyx d'Algérie produced exotic wares in Indo-Chinese and Islamic styles but also designs from Le Mobilier national and the Renaissance. This table is cornered by figural herm legs representing the four seasons which, with typical 19th century historicism, recall the baroque Atlas and Caryatid figures from the Corps de logis, Schloss Sanssouci.
Commissions for onyx marble were received for the Château de Ferrières and the Hôtel de La Païva, and the coroneted cypher to the frieze of this table suggests an equally prestigious provenance. The greatest use of ribbon-veined onyx-marble is however at the Garnier Opéra where it is employed to magnificent effect in the sweeping balustrades and sculptural candelabra by Cordier and Carrier-Belleuse, with galvanoplastie bronzework by Christofle.
The Compagnie des Marbres Onyx d'Algérie produced exotic wares in Indo-Chinese and Islamic styles but also designs from Le Mobilier national and the Renaissance. This table is cornered by figural herm legs representing the four seasons which, with typical 19th century historicism, recall the baroque Atlas and Caryatid figures from the Corps de logis, Schloss Sanssouci.