-
Table
unknown - Enlarge image
Table
- Place of origin:
Paris, France (possibly, made)
- Date:
ca. 1870 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
unknown (production)
- Materials and Techniques:
Mozambique rosewood in the solid and veneered on oak, with veneers of ebony, set with plaques of hardstones and porcelain; mounts of gilt bronze
- Credit Line:
Bequeathed by John Jones
- Museum number:
1016-1882
- Gallery location:
In store
John Jones, an avid British collector of French 18th-century furniture and porcelain, who bought this table between about 1870 and 1880, thought he was buying a table that had been made in Paris a century earlier. Painted porcelain plaques and plaques of hardstones were very attractive to Victorian collectors of French 18th-century furniture.
However, the table is narrower than most 18th-century tables and the combination of hardstones (pietre dure) with porcelain is most unusual. It now seems likely that the table was made up only a few years before Jones bought it, using earlier materials. The hardstone panels were probably made in Florence between about 1660 and 1690, but the painted porcelain plaque had probably only recently been made in Paris. The painted decoration imitates the plaques made by the Sèvres porcelain factory just outside Paris between about 1770 and 1790.
