CIRCA 1720-25

This table design evolves from the Louis XIV Roman fashion appropriate for a marble sideboard 'buffet' and its frame is embellished with a lozenge-trellised mosaic recalling the coffering of Rome's Temple of Venus. With its distinctive truss-scrolled pilasters, this pier-table reflects the influence of the dessinateurs du Roi Antoine and Pierre Le Pautre, such as featured in the latter's Livre de Tables qui sont dans les appartements du Roy sur lesquelles sont posée des bijoux du cabinet des médailles, published in Paris shortly after 1689. This work illustrated a series of giltwood consoles used to display the King's magnificent collection of silver. Related winged dragons to those on the stretchers of this console appear on the cresting of a trumeau from the cabinet d'angle of the Hotel Peyrenc de Moras. Constructed in 1723 by the architect Gabriel with the boiseries carved by Jules Degoullons and Andre Legoupil in 1724, these boiseries are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, a gift of J. Pierpont Morgan.