BY FERDINAND BARBEDIENNE, DESIGNED BY LOUIS-CONSTANT SÉVIN, PARIS, LAST QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

The design of this unusually large and fine center-table à la grecque is credited to Louis-Constant Sévin (d. 1888), head designer and sculpteur-ornemaniste for the Barbedienne foundry in the 1860s. The distinctive satyr supports are modeled after a brûle-parfum, considered one of Sévin’s masterpieces, which is illustrated alongside a large bronze table of another design in an effusive tribute in V. Champier, Revue des Arts Décoratifs, Neuvième année, 1888-89, p. 171 161-176.  Bespoke bronze furnishings and display cabinets by Barbedienne were notably ordered by for William H. Vanderbilt’s New York mansion by Herter Brothers to house the American magnate’s vast collection of ivories and enamel works (H. Williams, Enamels of the World 1700-2000,The Khalili Collections, London, 2009, p. 73).  Two such tables, likely those made for Vanderbilt and utilizing the same rouge marble were sold Christie’s, New York, 18-19 April 2012, lot 388 ($50,000) and are illustrated A. Lewis et al., The Opulent Interiors of the Gilded Age, New York, 1987, p. 116.