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Lot Essay
Small individual serving-tables, called tables servantes or rafraîchissoirs, with trays for plates and tubs for cooling the wine, mostly in mahogany after English prototypes, were developed for the use during ultimate private dinners without staff. Joseph Gengenbach, known as Canabas, specialised in these tables in the fashionable goût anglais. A rafraîchissoir of similar form and stamped by Canabas, is illustrated in N. de Reyniès, Le Mobilier Domestique, Paris, 1987, p. 341, fig. 1215, and a contemporary design for such a 'servante' is illustrated ibid. p. 339, fig. 1210.
Another very similar example, also stamped by Canabas, and now in the Musée Nissim de Camondo, Paris, is illustrated in G. Janneau and P. Devinoy, Le Meuble Léger en France, Paris, p. 29, pl. 229, and also in the exhibition catalogue Grands ébénistes et Menuisiers Parisiens du XVIIIe Siècle, 1740-1790, at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Dec. 1955 - Feb. 1956, no. 37, pl. 17.
A similar pair of rafraîchissoirs, both stamped Canabas, was sold at Christie's, Monaco, 2 December 1994, lot 168.
Another very similar example, also stamped by Canabas, and now in the Musée Nissim de Camondo, Paris, is illustrated in G. Janneau and P. Devinoy, Le Meuble Léger en France, Paris, p. 29, pl. 229, and also in the exhibition catalogue Grands ébénistes et Menuisiers Parisiens du XVIIIe Siècle, 1740-1790, at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Dec. 1955 - Feb. 1956, no. 37, pl. 17.
A similar pair of rafraîchissoirs, both stamped Canabas, was sold at Christie's, Monaco, 2 December 1994, lot 168.