A Louis XIV Style Giltwood Console Table

Description

A Louis XIV Style Giltwood Console Table, With Marble Top.

The rectangular brêche violette marble top inset within a gadrooned surround. The frieze caved in relief with lambrequins and centred by an Apollo mask surround by pieced scrollwork. On tapering square pilaster legs headed by masks and joined by an acanthus-sheathed and voluted ‘X’-shape stretcher,

France, Circa 1880.

King Louis XIV’s decision to build the Palace of Versailles prompted a flourishing of French art of unparalleled magnificence, a period often referred to as Le Grand Siècle. For Versailles, the architect and ornamentalist Pierre Le Pautre (1652–1716) designed a series of grand console tables that were delivered in the 1680s. His designs were subsequently published, ensuring their influence endured throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when this console table was made.

Etching of designs for console tables for Versailles by Pierre Le Pautre (‘Livre de tables qui sont dans les appartements du Roy’ / National Gallery of Art, Washington, Rosenwald Collection / Public Domain).

Although of smaller proportions, making it more suited to a fin-de-siècle mansion or townhouse than a royal palace, the table is nonetheless replete with decorative motifs that Louis XIV would have recognised, most notably the Apollo mask, one of the king’s personal emblems.