A pier table or side table of carved, gessoed and gilded softwood, with shaped top in black and gold portor marble. The table is raised on four flamboyantly curved legs that extend beyond the top, and are joined at low level by a carved stretcher panel centreing on a female mask.

A pier table or side table of carved, gessoed and gilded softwood, with shaped top in black and gold portor marble. The table is raised on four flamboyantly curved legs that extend beyond the top, and are joined at low level by a carved stretcher panel centreing on a female mask.
In plan the table shows scalloped sides leading to rounded sections over the front apron, with a narrow straight section in the centre.
The table is notably high, suggesting it came from a very large room wiith a high dado. The legs are composed of opposed scrolls, each with an elongated concave scroll below a tighter, convex C-scroll, the ends of this meeting behind an open section. The legs are moulded, with low relief ornament carved in the gesso on the front faces, including guilloche, formal husks and intertwined strapwork in the manner of Daniel Marot. The top of the frame is carved with a shallow, concave frieze between a lower, rounded moulding, and an ovolo moulding carved with guilloche. Between the front two legs the frame deepens to form an apron panel carved with opposed foliate scrolls below which is carved a shell/fan motif, each section carved with a foliate drop at the outer end. Behind this apron is a carved swag of flowers that shows below the shell and to each side of it and appears to loop over scrolling motifs to form swags hanging between the apron and each front leg.
The legs are joined at foot level with a stretcher panel that is set at an angle of about 45 degrees to the ground. The central motif is a female mask below a round arch with a flat extension to either side, the top of the arch with a finial in the form of a basket of flowers. The motif is linked to the legs by carved scrolls with foliate decoration.
The slab, which is inset from the frame, is broken into three pieces, along veins in the marble.
Gilding
The table has been re-gessoed and re-gilded, probably shortly before it was purchased, using water gilding. Some of the plain mouldings are burnished but much is left matt. Little bare wood is visible because the underside is painted in ochre. Although the majority appears to be of pine, there may be some sections (e.g. the stretcher) in lime.

Purchased for £16.

RF 65/1619
RF 75/1346

This table would have been one of a set to two or more, set between the windows in a fashionable entertaining room.

This pier table is remarkably high, suggesting that it was made for one of the most important rooms in a palazzo in Genoa, of large proporitions and with a high dado rail. It would have been one of a set of such tables, designed to stand between the windows of such a room, almost certainly with a mirror hung directly above them. When it was purchased by the Museum in 1859, Italian furniture was thought to be the most desirable and was certainl the most collected by the Museum, which sought out pieces that could provide good examples of craftsmanship to contemporary designers and makers.

6008-1859