A WALNUT, MAHOGANY AND BRASS CONSOLE, CIRCA 1941

In October 1939, at the request of the Count of Elda, Marc de Nicolas du Plantier, a fashionable young French designer, left Paris for Madrid. While France was entering into World War II, Spain was emerging from a civil war which, among other devastation, left few of the aristocracy's homes intact. As the Spanish well-to-do returned to Madrid and found their homes had been pillaged and ransacked, du Plantier found there was no shortage of work for him. The commission for the Count and Countess of Elda's apartment led to work for their friend the Marquis of C V. and his wife, and also for the Countesses' father, Enrique Carrion, The Marquis of Melin, who requested the design for a new staircase at his much deteriorated Hôtel Capital, which then evolved into a design for the entire reception area.

In the spring of 1940 the Countess of Elda's newly engaged sister, Maria de las Mercedes Carrion, and her soon to be husband, Manual Perez de Guzman, the Marquis de Morbecq, commissioned Plantier to decorate their future apartment(in addition to all the floral arrangements at the their wedding. The apartment, which was in the same building and identical in plan to the Countess of Elda's, consisted of a dining room, two sitting rooms, a dressing room, a study and bedrooms. Distinguishing it from her sister's, Plantier designed the Marquise de Morbecq furniture's in a neoclassical style. The present console table is from the dining room at this commission.