PARIS ÉPOQUE RÉGENCE

PARIS ÉPOQUE RÉGENCE
LARGE CONSOLE TABLE
Oak, royal red marble
H. 84 cm, W. 173 cm, D. 69 cm
Reinforcements, traces of gilding
This very beautiful console table, rectangular in shape, made of oak wood formerly gilded (which proves the exceptional quality and rarity of this piece of furniture), has a rich and very finely carved decoration of foliage scrolls, volutes and counter-volutes, acanthus leaves, fleurons and shells and in the belt a large cartouche centered on a shell. It rests on four double-curved legs, joined by a moving X-shaped spacer, sculpted with foliated volutes and presenting a central shelf, intended to receive a precious
Porcelain.
It was during the flowering of the Regency style that the most sumptuous carved wooden furniture was created in France. This furniture, mostly tables and consoles, had appeared in force during the reign of Louis
XIV. True pieces of sculpture, they nevertheless retained the strict architectural order instituted by Charles Le Brun. The tray always remains straight but the shapes become more flexible. Intended to be fixed against the woodwork, the consoles, or more exactly the "console table legs" as they were called at the time (the word table actually only meant the marble top), offered carpenters and sculptors, with their more pronounced curvature than that of the tables and their fretworked belts, a particularly favourable terrain for their imagination and virtuosity. Intermediate between the middle tables and the consoles, some of these four-legged pieces of furniture, such as tables, are nevertheless intended to be placed against a wall. They can be recognized by their belts, which are only carved on three sides.