CIRCA 1815

With their idiosyncratic splayed legs headed by rams’ heads and their overall novel design, these elegant console tables are highly reminiscent of those supplied to Pierre-Gaspard-Marie-Grimod d'Orsay, comte d'Orsay (1748-1809) circa 1768 for his hôtel particulier rue de Varenne (sold Christie’s, New York, 21 May 1996, lot 333 (the pair) and Christie’s, New York, 21 October 2014, lot 253 (the larger console table probably supplied en suite)). The latter tables – emblematic of the nascent neo-classicism - were inspired by a design by André-Charles Boulle for a console with tapering legs headed by rams’ heads terminating in hoof feet (published by Mariette in his Nouveaux deisseins de meubles et ouvrages de bronze et de marqueterie inventés et gravés par André-Charles Boulle et sa famille; nouvelles recherches, nouveaux documents, 1979, p.218).

The distinctive splayed legs with rams’ heads and stiff-leaf hoof feet on the present tables are virtually identical to those featured on a gueridon in the salle du billiard at the château de la Malmaison. The same rams headed legs can be found on a further gueridon, formerly in the Collections of the French Rothschilds, possibly Baron Alphonse de Rothschild (1827-1905) for the hôtel Saint-Florentin (sold Christie’s, London, ‘The Gothick Pavilion, Byron to Beaton’, 9 December 2010, lot 19) and on another example, formerly in the hôtel particulier of Monsieur Jean-Pierre Delahaye, avocat to the prince de Conti and painter David (sold Sotheby’s, Paris, 16 April 2013, lot 163).