SECOND QUARTER 18TH CENTURY

This exuberantly carved console table speaks to the whimsy and fantasy embedded in the creative vocabulary of the second quarter of the 18th century and relates to table patterns invented by the carver/sculptor Jean Bernard Tureau, called Toro (d. 1731) and the sculptor and designer Nicolas Pineau (1684-1754).

While the satyr and trellis ground of the table recall the interior ornamentation of ancient Rome, the legs headed by dragons of this console relate to designs by both Tureau and Pineau. The dragon was a favoured motif of both Tureau and Pineau, appearing repeatedly in their work in numerous variations. A console table issued in Tureau's Livres de Tables de Diverses Formes, 1716 and published under the auspices of the court architect Charles-Nicolas Lepas-Dubuisson shows a console with cabriole legs emerging from a plinth base and headed by dragons, not unlike the present lot. A design by Nicolas Pineau from his Nouveaux desseins de Pieds de table, de Vases et de Consoles, de sculpture en bois, inv. par le Sr. Pineau, which was published by Mariette in Paris circa 1734, shows a console of more rectangular form, with a cabriole leg similarly headed by dragons with wings extending back and the legs joined by a stretcher (P. Verlet Les ébénistes du XVIIIe Siècle Français, Paris, 1963, p. 54, fig. 11).

A closely related table almost certainly made in the same workshop and with identical dragons, though with straight front corners to the frieze rather than the rounded front of the present table, was formerly in the Brandt Collection, Geneva (sold Ader Picard Tajan, Geneva, 11-13 October, 1976, lot 155). A table of related form, with trellis-ground but with terms to the angles, a pierced frieze and dragons to the stretcher, was sold from The Collection of Carroll Petrie, Christie's, New York, 31 March 2016, lot 1020.