LATE 18TH 19TH CENTURY

This lot shows similarities to two smaller gueridons at the Pavlovsk Palace near St. Petersburg, one in the Old Drawing Room and the other in the Dressing Room of Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna, illustrated in E. Ducamp, Pavlovsk: The Palace and the Park, Paris, 1993, pps. 135, 136 and 172. Tables of similar design and proportions seem to have been fashionable at the Russian court and they usually supported tops made of precious stones. A more elaborate example with a Turchaninovo jasper top and lionesses' masks is at Gachina Palace, illustrated in a watercolour by L. Premazzi (1872) of the Raspberry Drawing Room of the Empress Maria Feodorovna (N. S. Tretyakov, Gachina: Watercolours, Paintings, Engravings from the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries, Paris, 1992, pps. 58, 59).