A PAIR OF LOUIS XV GILTWOOD CONSOLES

CIRCA 1755

Details

A PAIR OF LOUIS XV GILTWOOD CONSOLES
Circa 1755
Each with serpentine breccia marble top above a pierced, ruffled and scrolled frieze carved with floral garlands, laurel branches and centering a ribbon-tied hunting trophy, the sides centering shells and fruited garlands, on scrolled supports carved with leafy oak branches headed by spread-winged falcons and joined by a stretcher, one carved with dogs attacking a boar, the other with dogs attacking a stag, both atop rockwork amid oak trees, on acanthus-carved feet centering a ruffled shell, one painted with an 'A', the other with a 'B' to underside
34in. (88cm.) high, 54in. (138.4cm.) wide, 21in. (53.3cm.) deep (2)

Lot Essay

These remarkable consoles depicting hunting scenes carved on the stretchers and hunting trophies centering the frieze, were probably executed for a hunting lodge or a country chteau. The scenes were most likely taken after hunting paintings by the artist Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1686-1755). Oudry painted two large hunting scenes The Boar Hunt and the Stag Hunt as part of a series of such thematic paintings in 1722-25. His largest painting the Stag Hunt was engraved in reverse in 1723 by N.C. Silverstre and probably served as the inspiration for the lively scene on one of these consoles (see P. Grate, French Paintings II: Eighteenth Century, Stockholm, 1994, pp. 226-227, fig. 203).

A pair of smaller consoles also depicting hunting scenes on the stretchers was sold in these Rooms, 21 October 1997, lot 189.