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Lot Essay
A pair of giltwood consoles, almost certainly executed in the same workshop and displaying identical legs and ornament to the pierced frieze, but with variants to the floral garlands of the stretchers and different feet and ribbon-ties, was sold anonymously at Ader Picard Tajan, Paris, 10 December 1989, lot 175 (FFr.500,000). A further pair of tables with closely related pendant floral swags but a solid frieze, formerly in the Fourdinois sale, 24 January 1887, was illustrated in the privately printed catalogue of the Collection Cottreau, ed. G. Petit, Paris, 1911, no.225.
The pierced acanthus arabesque rinceaux frieze of the Alexander tables is also of very similar design to that on the pair of console-tables first recorded at Fontainebleau in 1796, of which one is now in the Louvre. Although the sculpteur's identity remains tantalisingly unidentifiable, their subsequent history is well-documented in B.G.B. Pallot, Furniture Collections in the Louvre, Dijon, 1993, no.50, pp.144-7.
The pierced acanthus arabesque rinceaux frieze of the Alexander tables is also of very similar design to that on the pair of console-tables first recorded at Fontainebleau in 1796, of which one is now in the Louvre. Although the sculpteur's identity remains tantalisingly unidentifiable, their subsequent history is well-documented in B.G.B. Pallot, Furniture Collections in the Louvre, Dijon, 1993, no.50, pp.144-7.