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Lot Essay
The pierced palmette motifs which figure so prominently in the present table may immediately bring to mind both the architecture and decorative arts designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841). Schinkel, however, did not have a monopoly on these designs as a slightly earlier console table constructed after an 1802 design of the sculptor Gottfried von Schadow (1764-1850) indicates (see H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des deutschen Möbels: Klassizismus Historismus Jugendstil, Munich, 1973, no. 293). The console, formerly in the Potsdam Stadtschloss, has a boldly carved leaf frieze which pre-dates similar designs by Schinkel by almost twenty years and, more specifically in relation to the present table, the stretcher of pierced palmettes is almost identical to the border of the present table. That is not the only link of this console to the present table. While it is unmistakenly of the Empire period, Schadow's design still retains traces of the late 18th century elements such as the acanthus carving of the stretcher. The present table, while also prominently displaying these new Empire period motifs also has the same Louis XVI elements which can be seen on the stretcher and legs.
A second table, far more similar to the present table and now in the Hillwood Museum, Washington, D.C., provides another clue to the almost certain Berlin orgins of the present table. And indeed even another link to the designs of Schadow. This porcelain-mounted ormolu gueridon, long thought to have been of Russian manufacture, and illustrated as such in A. Chenevière, Russian Furniture: the Golden Age, 1780-1840, London, 1988, pp. 204-205, was made to celebrate the engagement of Princess Charlotte of Prussia to Grand Duke Nicholas, the future Nicholas I, in 1817. More recent scholarship, however, has confirmed that both the porcelain and ormolu are entirely of Berlin manufacture. It was brought as part of Princess Charlotte's dowry to St. Petersburg and installed in the Anichkov Palace (see A. Odom and L. Arend, A Taste for Splendor: Russian Imperial and European Treasures from the Hillwood Museum, exh. cat., Alexandria, Virginia, 1988, no. 120). Hillwood's ormolu gueridon with its extremely similar overall design and nearly identical acanthus-cast paw feet, is based at least partly on designs provided by Schadow to KPM, the Royal porcelain manufactury (Ibid,, p. 231). So, while a definitive attribution for the moment remains unclear, the present table was almost certainly produced within the first two decades of the 19th century in Berlin by a workshop closely following Prussian court taste.
A second table, far more similar to the present table and now in the Hillwood Museum, Washington, D.C., provides another clue to the almost certain Berlin orgins of the present table. And indeed even another link to the designs of Schadow. This porcelain-mounted ormolu gueridon, long thought to have been of Russian manufacture, and illustrated as such in A. Chenevière, Russian Furniture: the Golden Age, 1780-1840, London, 1988, pp. 204-205, was made to celebrate the engagement of Princess Charlotte of Prussia to Grand Duke Nicholas, the future Nicholas I, in 1817. More recent scholarship, however, has confirmed that both the porcelain and ormolu are entirely of Berlin manufacture. It was brought as part of Princess Charlotte's dowry to St. Petersburg and installed in the Anichkov Palace (see A. Odom and L. Arend, A Taste for Splendor: Russian Imperial and European Treasures from the Hillwood Museum, exh. cat., Alexandria, Virginia, 1988, no. 120). Hillwood's ormolu gueridon with its extremely similar overall design and nearly identical acanthus-cast paw feet, is based at least partly on designs provided by Schadow to KPM, the Royal porcelain manufactury (Ibid,, p. 231). So, while a definitive attribution for the moment remains unclear, the present table was almost certainly produced within the first two decades of the 19th century in Berlin by a workshop closely following Prussian court taste.