Lot 146
146
A VIENNESE BRASS-MOUNTED MAHOGANY, EBONISED AND PARCEL-GILT ETAGERE, the pierced galleried oval tiers on female herm-supports, their arms outstretched and with a fluted capital, standing on an orb and foliate pedestal, the plain panelled frieze supported by four winged herm monopodiae holding the attributes of the elements with a fish, a bird, a flaming urn and a fruiting tazza, joined by a concave-sided lozenge-shaped stretcher, on hairy claw feet, with label to the underside B..ndel bürgerl, early 19th Century

Details
A VIENNESE BRASS-MOUNTED MAHOGANY, EBONISED AND PARCEL-GILT ETAGERE, the pierced galleried oval tiers on female herm-supports, their arms outstretched and with a fluted capital, standing on an orb and foliate pedestal, the plain panelled frieze supported by four winged herm monopodiae holding the attributes of the elements with a fish, a bird, a flaming urn and a fruiting tazza, joined by a concave-sided lozenge-shaped stretcher, on hairy claw feet, with label to the underside B..ndel bürgerl, early 19th Century
22½in. (57cm.) wide; 52½in. (133cm.) high; 16¼in. (41.5cm.) deep
Provenance
Eric von Stroheim

Lot Essay

Designed in the antique manner popularised by C.Percier and P. Fontaine, this etagère, with its winged monopodiae supports emblematic of the Elements, is inspired by a design for a Trépied illustrated in Percier and Fontaine's, Recueil de Decorations Intérieures, Paris, 1801, plate 33. This form consequently appeared in a Leipzig pattern book between 1799 and 1815, called Sammlung von Zeichnungen der Neuesten Londoner und Pariser Meubles Als Muster für Tischler, (illustrated in G. Himmelheber, Deutsche Möbelworlagen 1800-1900, Munich, 1988, p. 329, fig. 1592).

A closely related console table, possibly attributable to the same workshop and now in The Bundes-Mobilien-Verwaltung, Vienna, is illustrated in H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des Deutschen Möbels, Munich, 1973, vol. III, fig. 342. A similar oval etagère, dated 1807, is illustrated in H. Kreisel, op. cit., fig. 341.

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