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Lot Essay
The very expressive legs of this table composed of figures with curved tails standing on dwarf grotesque supports have often been interpreted as being inspired by images of Hindu snake-like protection spirits known as nagas or naginis. The figures on our table with their hands held up to the chest as if in prayer have a strong spiritual essence. The grotesque smaller figure with its distorted face and elongated feet is clearly intended to intimidate and was most probably designed like naga figures to ward off evil. When discussing a 17th Century Goan contador in the Victoria and Albert Museum with similar figural legs, Amin Jaffer rejects the theory that they are in principle inspired by Hindu motifs (Inv. 777-1865; Amin Jaffer, Luxury Goods from India, London, 2002, no.22, pp.58-59). He suggests instead that the design of the legs is based upon the ‘Western classical architectural tradition of employing atlantes' which are male versions of caryatids. The figures carved into the legs on our table are much closer in design and aesthetic to a late 17th century Goan cabinet now in the collection of the Municipal Museum Figueira da Foz in Portugal than they are to those on the contador in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Art & the East India Trade, exhibition catalogue, Victoria and Albert Museum, London 1970, no.16). The figures on our table legs and on those of the cabinet in Portugal are clearly female and have long straight hair with serpentine tails. This would suggest that the figures on both items of furniture are Indian inspired.
The cabinet in Figuera da Foz and our table share distinctive bi-cephalous eagles wearing open crowns. This would suggest that both pieces were items commissioned by Portuguese nobles directly from India. A cabinet with extremely similar inlaid decoration including ivory inlaid female figures with intertwined snakes legs and crouching lions was recently offered at Sotheby’s, 24 April 2013, lot 214. Known as the Hohenzollern Cabinet, that example had previously been in the collection of several European Royal families including the house of Braganza, Saxe-Coburg and Hohenzollern. Our table illustrates the same finesse of inlay with expressive figures as those on the Hohenzollern Cabinet suggesting that both were produced as part of the same noble or possibly Royal commission. An almost identical table is in the collection of the Museo de Pontevedra in Galicia, Spain (Grace Hardendorff Burr, Hispanic Furniture, New York, 1964, fig. 45, p. 48).
The cabinet in Figuera da Foz and our table share distinctive bi-cephalous eagles wearing open crowns. This would suggest that both pieces were items commissioned by Portuguese nobles directly from India. A cabinet with extremely similar inlaid decoration including ivory inlaid female figures with intertwined snakes legs and crouching lions was recently offered at Sotheby’s, 24 April 2013, lot 214. Known as the Hohenzollern Cabinet, that example had previously been in the collection of several European Royal families including the house of Braganza, Saxe-Coburg and Hohenzollern. Our table illustrates the same finesse of inlay with expressive figures as those on the Hohenzollern Cabinet suggesting that both were produced as part of the same noble or possibly Royal commission. An almost identical table is in the collection of the Museo de Pontevedra in Galicia, Spain (Grace Hardendorff Burr, Hispanic Furniture, New York, 1964, fig. 45, p. 48).