Table thumbnail 1
Table thumbnail 2
+10
images
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Furniture, Room 135, The Dr Susan Weber Gallery

This object consists of 2 parts, some of which may be located elsewhere.

Table

1550-1600 (made), 1600-1830 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

This table is a rare surviving example of furniture embellished with precious metalwork, although some elements (such as the stones and caryatids on the leg) are later additions. Etched and inlaid in gold and silver a chess board in the centre of the top, it is designed to be admired and for occasional use. Furniture such as this was probably shown only to selected guests, and would have been covered when not required.

The iron plaques which cover the table have been decorated using a technique believed to have originated in the Middle East and known in the West as ‘damascening’, after the Syrian city of Damascus. Damascening was a painstaking and demanding technique, but it enabled the goldsmith to create a surface that was precious, durable and colourful. The plaques on this table are damascened using the European method.
In the sixteenth century, damascening became particularly associated with Northern Italian city-state of Milan. Although Milanese goldsmiths, engravers and damasceners were famed for the elaborate armours they produced for European princes, workshop inventories show that damasceners were also contracted to decorate plaques for furniture and decorative furnishings.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Parts
This object consists of 2 parts.

  • Table
  • Stand
Materials and techniques
Sheet iron, engraved and inlaid and overlaid with gold and sliver, on a wood substrate with applied cast elements and hardstones
Brief description
Table, wooden core overlaid with steel plaques damascened in silver and gold, inlaid with semi-precious stones; possibly Milan (Italy), 1550-1600 with later alterations at unspecified dates made until around 1830.
Physical description
Square games table supported on a single column terminating in three feet, comprising a wooden core pinned with iron plaques damascened in silver and gold. The top set with damascened iron plaques and inlaid with oval and tear-shaped pieces of lapis lazuli. The column set with damascened iron plaques, applied cast figures of caryatids and semi-precious stones set in cast, pierced settings. The table top is edged with a gilded bronze, cast? moulding attached with pins and screws of different dates. Strips of red velvet cover the underside of the top.
Dimensions
  • Height: 68cm
  • Width of table top width: 69cm
  • Depth of table top depth: 68cm
Gallery label
  • CHESS TABLE Iron, damascened with gold and silver and set with lapis-lazuli and agate Italian (Milan); about 1575 The table is a notable example of damascening, an art which was carried to great heights in 16th century Milan, and is probably armourer's work. Said to have been made for a member of the House of Savoy. Formerly in the collections of Monsieur Debruge-Duménil, Prince Soltykoff and the Duke of Hamilton. Both pieces are luxurious examples of the skilled art of damascening (the inlaying of iron with precious metals). This technique was perfected by sixteenth-century armourers working in Northern Italian towns, especially Milan. Examples of damascened armour can be found in the Armour Gallery (Gallery 88).
  • Games table Assembled before 1830 Damascened plaques about 1565–80 Italy; the damascened plaques Milan Carcase: wood Plaques: iron (engraved, overlaid with gold and silver), lapis lazuli, silvered and gilded brass or bronze Underside of the top: velvet Museum no. 176-1885 For over a century, this table has been seen as a Renaissance masterpiece. Recent research has shown that its history is more complicated. The damascened gamesboard and table feet are 16th-century, but possibly from different sources. The gamesboard has been extended with 16th-century plaques and newly cut lapis lazuli inserts. The cast figures on the leg are also an embellishment. (01/12/2012)
Object history
In the nineteenth century, the table belonged to some notable collectors: the Frenchman Louis Fidel Débruge Dumenil (d.1838), the Russian prince Petr Soltykoff, and the 12th Duke of Hamilton (who sold it in July 1882). The South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) purchased the table in 1885 from a Mr T.M. Whitehead, who had bought it from the collection of the colonial administrator and conservative politician Christopher Beckett Denison (d.1884; see the sale catalogue for Christie's, June 1885, lot 813). The Museum paid £1565.11.0 for the piece, which had sold for 20,000 Francs at the Paris auction of Prince Soltykoff's possessions 23 years earlier: see Catalogue 1861, lot 333.
The suggestion that the table, together with a damascened mirror-cum-casket (later also purchased by the Museum and now V&A 7648-1861), were gifts from the Dukes of Milan to the rulers of Savoy originated with the 1861 Soltykoff auction catalogue, where they are described as 'magnificently royal' and complementary to one another ('Ces deux objets [ie. V&A 7648-1861 and the table], d'une magnificence toute royale et que sont l'un le complément de l'autre ont été autrefois donnés en présent par les ducs de Milan à la maison de Savoie'). J. C. Robinson's entry for the table in the catalogue accompanying the 1862 loan exhibition at the South Kensington Museum (it was lent by the Duke of Hamilton) is more sceptical, and notes it lacks any armorial bearings or other definite indication of origin (Robinson, 1863, no. 6587).
Debruge-Duménil acquired his collection rapidly, during the last eight years of his life (1830-38). His son Marcel acquired pieces for him in Italy during the 1830s, among them damascened objects (Arquié-Bruley: 1990, p. 218), so it is possible that this table was bought directly from an Italian dealer and not purchased at auction in Paris.
Debruge-Duménil's son-in-law, the art historian Jules Labarte, prepared a descriptive catalogue of the collection prior to its sale in 1847. This records only five damascened objects, including the table. Labarte dates it to the start of the sixteenth century, and his detailed description corresponds to the piece as it survives today. Recent technical analysis has confirmed suspicions that the table has been rebuilt and that several elements are later alterations, although these pre-date the period 1830-38 when it entered Debruge-Duménil's collection. The wooden core of the tabletop is eighteenth or nineteenth century, as are the gemstones and caryatids applied to the table leg. The central plaque of the table top is surrounded by a series of damascened plaques cut to create a border that also incorporates pieces of lapis lazuli. While these cut border plaques are sixteenth century, their configuration on the table top is not original and they were presumably added at a later date to enlarge the table.
All this notwithstanding, the table is a rare survival: few other examples of furniture decorated with finely-wrought metalwork appear in collections today (cf a German table decorated with silver plaques in the Museo de Artes Decorativas, Madrid: see Benito, 2005).
The iron plaques on this table have been decorated using a technique believed to have originated in the Middle East and known in the West as ‘damascening’, after the Syrian city of Damascus (for the obscure origins of the technique, see Lavin:1997). Traditional Islamic damascening involves inlaying silver and gold in narrow channels engraved in brass and bronze. European 'damaskers' (as they were known in sixteenth-century England) modified the process. The goldsmith first roughened a metal surface – typically one of iron or steel – according to the pattern he wished to execute. He then applied gold or silver leaf or wire to the rough areas. The precious metal, effectively adhered, was then burnished (or rubbed) flush with the surface of the metal. Damascening was a painstaking and demanding technique, but it enabled the goldsmith to create a surface that was precious, durable and colourful. The plaques on this table are damascened using the European method.

In the sixteenth century, damascening became particularly associated with Northern Italian city-state of Milan. Although Milanese goldsmiths, engravers and damasceners were famed for the elaborate armours they produced for European princes, workshop inventories show that damasceners were also contracted to decorate plaques for furniture and decorative furnishings (see Leydi: 2003, p. 40, for large plaques listed in the workshop inventory of damascener Giacomo Filippo da Ronco [d.1577]).

The anthropomorphic desgin of the three feet, which are engraved and damascened to resemble snub-nosed, scaly creatures with sharp teeth, recalls the inventiveness of contemporary armourers (Godoy and Leydi: 2003). The architectural motifs and scenes on many of the plaques, and on the leg, reflect the sixteenth-century fascination with Classical Roman architecture and design (see Morley: 1999, chapter 4). The series of scenes depicting ruins on the table top almost certainly derive from contemporary print sources.

Historical context
The table, etched and inlaid in gold and silver with a chess board in the centre is designed to be admired and for occasional use. Furniture such as this was probably shown only to selected guests, and would have been covered when not required.
Summary
This table is a rare surviving example of furniture embellished with precious metalwork, although some elements (such as the stones and caryatids on the leg) are later additions. Etched and inlaid in gold and silver a chess board in the centre of the top, it is designed to be admired and for occasional use. Furniture such as this was probably shown only to selected guests, and would have been covered when not required.

The iron plaques which cover the table have been decorated using a technique believed to have originated in the Middle East and known in the West as ‘damascening’, after the Syrian city of Damascus. Damascening was a painstaking and demanding technique, but it enabled the goldsmith to create a surface that was precious, durable and colourful. The plaques on this table are damascened using the European method.
In the sixteenth century, damascening became particularly associated with Northern Italian city-state of Milan. Although Milanese goldsmiths, engravers and damasceners were famed for the elaborate armours they produced for European princes, workshop inventories show that damasceners were also contracted to decorate plaques for furniture and decorative furnishings.
Bibliographic references
  • Labarte, Jules. Description des objets d'art qui composent la collection Débruge Dumenil précédé d'une introduction historique. Paris: Librairie Archéologique de Victor Didron, 1847.
  • Catalogue d'objets d'art et de haute curiosité composant la célèbre collection du Prince Soltykoff: Hôtel Drouot. Catalogue of auction held Paris, 8th April - 1 May, 1861.
  • Benito, Javier Alonso. Fantasía manierista en el bufete de plata del Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas. In: Jesús Rivas Carmona, ed. Estudios de Platería San Eloy 2005. Murcia: Universidad, 2005. ISBN 84-8371-580-5, pp. 19-35.
  • Leydi, Silvio. Gli armaioli milanesi del secondo Cinquecento: Famiglie, botteghe, clienti attraverso i documenti. In: José-A. Godoy and Silvio Leydi, Armature da parata del Cinquecento. Un primato dell'arte lombarda. Catalogue of the exhibition held at the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan, 25 September - 14 December, 2003. Milan: 5 Continents Editions, 2003. ISBN: 88-7439-097-1, pp. 29-50.
  • Godoy, José-A. and Silvio Leydi. Parures Triomphales: Le maniérisme dans l'art de l'armure italienne. Catalogue of the exhibition held at Musée Rath, Geneva, 20 March - 20 July, 2003. Geneva: Musées d'art et d'histoire, 2003. ISBN: 88-7439-032-7
  • Morley, John. Furniture: the western tradition: history, style, design. London: Thames & Hudson, 1999. ISBN: 0500019487.
  • Robinson, J. C., ed. Catalogue of the Special exhibition of works of art, mediaeval, renaissance, and more recent perios, on loan at the South Kensington Museum, June 1862, revised edn. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1863.
  • Catalogue of the collection of pictures, works of art and decorative objects, the property of his grace the Duke of Hamilton (Third Portion). Auction catalogue of Christie, Manson and Woods, London, July 1 - 4, 1882.
  • Lavin, James D. Damascening in Spain: A Brief History to 1840. In: The Art and Tradition of the Zuolagas: Spanish Damascene from the Khalili Collection. London: The Khalili Family Trust / Victoria and Albert Museum, 1997. pp.13-35. Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 30 May 1997-11 January 1998. ISBN 1874780110.
  • Arquié-Bruley, F. Debruge-Duménil (1788-1838) et sa collection d'objets d'art. Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa: Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, series 3. 1990, vol. 20, no.1. pp. 211-248.
Collection
Accession number
176-1885

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Record createdJune 24, 2009
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