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Lot Essay
This bowed marble-topped console table has its frieze embellished in the Louis XIV 'Roman' or 'antique' manner with a flowered and husk-festooned ribbon-guilloche, and is wrapped around the bowed and indented corners with Roman acanthus leaves. While stately lambrequins drape the sides, the cartouche of its flower-festooned apron of antique fretted and acanthus-wrapped ribbons displays an Arcadian foliage-plumed nymph. Her husk-festooned scalloped and foliated plumes also embellish lambrequins draping the flowered and voluted trusses of the serpentined legs, which terminate in stetcher-tied lion paws. Patterns for similar-fretted friezes or 'corniches', as well as nymph masks and paw footed furniture appear in 'Nouveau Livre d'Ornements, pour 'utillitee des Sculpteurs et Orfevres' issued around 1700 by King-Stadholder William III's architect Daniel Marot (1661-1752). The mask derives from Bernard Toro's 'Livre de table de Diverses Formes', which was published in 1716.
A number of Swedish tables in the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm incorporate a similar ornamental vocabulary and are illustrated in S. Wallin, Nordiska Museets Möbler Fran Svenska Herremanshem, Stockholm, 1979, 4th ed., pp. 128-135, figs. 218-229. However, the predominant use of lime rather than pine would more likely suggest a German origin.
It has been complicated to detemine the age and origin of this table. The design is very grand, and the carving is confident and deep, both of which are in its favour. However, the contruction of the carcass, which is in limewood, is unorthodox and nonchalant for a piece of furniture which would certainly have been an important commission. Unfortunately, the surface has been regilt and virtually all earlier layers of gilding and gesso have been removed, and the the remaining minuscule specks of gesso are too small for microscopic analysis.
A number of Swedish tables in the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm incorporate a similar ornamental vocabulary and are illustrated in S. Wallin, Nordiska Museets Möbler Fran Svenska Herremanshem, Stockholm, 1979, 4th ed., pp. 128-135, figs. 218-229. However, the predominant use of lime rather than pine would more likely suggest a German origin.
It has been complicated to detemine the age and origin of this table. The design is very grand, and the carving is confident and deep, both of which are in its favour. However, the contruction of the carcass, which is in limewood, is unorthodox and nonchalant for a piece of furniture which would certainly have been an important commission. Unfortunately, the surface has been regilt and virtually all earlier layers of gilding and gesso have been removed, and the the remaining minuscule specks of gesso are too small for microscopic analysis.