CIRCA 1800

With its distinct paterae-headed fluted legs and vine frieze, this table is very similar to a console in the Stockholm house of the merchant Wilhelm Schvardz, which was decorated by the designer Louis Masreliez in the 1790s. (H. Groth, Neoclassicism in the North, London, 1992, p. 134, fig. 129). Louis Masreliez (d.1806) was a painter and designer and was one of the leading decorators of the late Gustavian period. He was educated in Paris, Bologna and Rome, before returning to Sweden in 1783 at the request of Gustaf III. He was responsible for the designs of several Royal residences, including the Royal Palace in Stockholm (circa 1785), Tullgarn and Drottningholm. He was also involved in other commissions, such as Hylinge in the province of Ostergotland, the property of Count Stromfelt.
The decorations of these houses were mostly executed in the Pompeiian manner which Louis Masreliez introduced at the end of the 18th Century. Although very strongly influenced by French designs, his work remains quite distinctly identifiable as Swedish. The present table, which is conceived in his Swedish-Pompeiian style, is closely related to a further group of similar tables, such as the pair of tables at Hylinge and a further related table at Haga, Gustaf III's pavillion, whose interior was also designed by Louis Masreliez. ( ibid. p. 69, fig. 47 and p. 94, fig. 72)