展品专文
This striking console table is testament to the exchange of ideas and proliferation of published designs throughout Europe in the first half of the 18th century. The general outline of the table with its central cartouche, here centred by a satyr mask, generously-carved angles, and most importantly its stretcher with shell cresting, derives from designs by Nicolas Pineau (1684–1754) in Nouveaux dessins de pieds de tables et de vases et consoles de sculpture en bois (1732-29) and later plagiarised by Thomas and Batty Langley in their The City and Country Builder's and Workman's Treasury of Designs (1740).
Much like the Rococo style that they propagated, these designs were copied and disseminated through all of Europe, including in Germany. A table by Johann Paul Egell, currently in Schloss Thurn & Taxis, Regensburg (illustrated H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des deutschen Mobels, Munich, 1970, fig. 609), bears similarities to the current lot but is more faithful to Pineau's design with caryatids on the angles and a flowerhead in the central cartouche. A related table was sold at Christie’s London, 3 December 1970, lot 72 and illustrated at Hall Place, Maidenhead in C. Hussey, English Country Houses: Early Georgian, p.116, fig. 177.
Much like the Rococo style that they propagated, these designs were copied and disseminated through all of Europe, including in Germany. A table by Johann Paul Egell, currently in Schloss Thurn & Taxis, Regensburg (illustrated H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des deutschen Mobels, Munich, 1970, fig. 609), bears similarities to the current lot but is more faithful to Pineau's design with caryatids on the angles and a flowerhead in the central cartouche. A related table was sold at Christie’s London, 3 December 1970, lot 72 and illustrated at Hall Place, Maidenhead in C. Hussey, English Country Houses: Early Georgian, p.116, fig. 177.