IN THE MANNER OF CHARLES TOPINO

Details

AN ORMOLU-MOUNTED TULIPWOOD AND MARQUETRY TABLE A ECRIRE
In the manner of Charles Topino
The pierced, galleried, grey-veined white marble oval top above a green leather-lined writing-slide and frieze inlaid with naive marquetry panels of cooking utensils and vases, with a walnut-lined drawer to one end, on laurel-swag headed cabriole legs joined by a concave-fronted oval undertier inlaid with further vases and on acanthus-scrolled sabots, stamped 'C.TOPINO', restorations, re-carcased and probably re-using the 18th Century veneer, hence the cut-in signature, the drawer previously further fitted
24 in. (61 cm.) wide; 28¾ in. (73 cm.) high; 16¼ in. (41.5 cm.) deep

Lot Essay

This table à écrire is closely related to that commissioned by Marie-Antoinette for Versailles. Almost certainly supplied by the ébéniste Charles Topino (maître in 1773) between 1774-76 and paid for from the Queen's 'cassette privée , it is first recorded by the ébéniste Paquet in 1784, when it was listed as 'une table de placage chinoise' in the appartements de la Reine (anonymous sale, Sotheby's Monaco, 3 December 1994, lot 350). A further table with identical mounts and undertier marquetry was sold anonymously at Christie's Geneva, 18 November 1974, lot 25.

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