A LOUIS XIV PARCEL-GILT AMARANTH, FRUITWOOD AND MARQUETRY TABLE DE...

In the manner of Pierre Gole, decorated all-over with flowers and strapwork in panels, the top opening to a writing surface and three hinged compartments, the short sides each with a drawer, on tapering octagonal-sectioned legs on gilt gadrooned feet
271⁄2 in. (70 cm.) high, 32 in. (81.5 cm.) wide, 121⁄2 in. (32 cm.) deep, when closed

Provenance
Acquired from Galerie Jean Wanecq, Paris.

Lot Essay
The table de changeur form, distinguished by its swing legs and hinged compartments at top, originates with its original utilitarian purpose to be used by a banker or money changer. Although examples are known of both Flemish and French origin, they are now relatively rare. For two Boulle marquetry tables de changeur from the same period as ours, see G. Janneau, Le Meuble d'ébénisterie, Paris, 1993, p. 16, plate 15, and the example sold from the Dimitri Mavrommatis Collection, Sotheby's, London, 8 July 2008, lot 3. The extravagant floral marquetry also derives from Flemish prototypes, and epitomizes the decoration of the refined pieces of the latter seventeenth century. It is most commonly associated with the Dutch-born Pierre Gole (circa 1620-1685), foremost ébéniste of the early years of Louis XIV's reign, who may have been the first to decorate furniture with floral marquetry, probably in the early 1650s, and which may have elevated him to 'maître menuisier en ébène ordinaire du roi' from 1656. A definitive attribution to Gole may not, however, be possible as of yet; many other cabinetmakers active at the time, including Michel Camp, Aubertin and Renaud Gaudron, François Guillemard and Charles Fromageau worked as well in floral marquetry, and no specific characteristics of Gole's work in this mode have been formulated.