POSSIBLY GELDERLAND, SECOND HALF 17TH CENTURY

This carved side table deviates in several aspects from most of the auricular tables in the Schermerhorn collection. The overall shape of the table, with thin panelled legs and a wide foliate stretcher, is unusual and seems foreign. The other tables generally follow a fuller, more compact design. The carved decoration of the front is also entirely original: the realistic eagle heads and the lacquer roundel cannot be compared to the decorative vocabulary of other Dutch tables. However, the side stretchers have been carved with splendid auricular masks, and relate to a design for a cartouche by Johannes Lutma, which was included in his Veelderhande Nieuwe Compartemente, a series published in 1653. (J.R. ter Molen, 'The Auricular Style' in A. Gruber (ed.), Classicism and the Baroque in Europe, Paris, 1994, p. 75.) This table may therefore have been executed in one of Holland's eastern provinces, possibly Gelderland, where furniture-making was undoubtedly influenced by German examples. A virtually identical side table is depicted in the vestibule of a house at Rijkmanstraat 16 in Deventer, which was painted by Jan Striening (1858-1903) during his stay in that town between 1858 and 1881. (M.E. Houck, Wandelingen door oud-Deventer, Deventer, 1909, p. 79, fig. 65.)