A rectangular console table or pier table of mahogany on a carcase of oak, with gilt-brass mounts, with one concealed drawer in the frieze. The separate slabe of grey marble (marbre de Corse or Napoleonite) with a white edge inlaid with formalised leaves.

A rectangular mahogany console table supporting a slab veneered in grey marbre de Corse or Napoleonite (a form of diorite, also known as Corsite), with pietre dure borders. The deep frieze is raised on columnar front legs and pilasters at the back, the bases of the columns projecting beyond the square plinth while the pilasters rest on top of it. The columns are mounted with metal capitals and collars above their bases, and the front frieze is decorated with partly figurative metal mounts in the centre and above the columns. The slab, which projects over the front and sides, is decorated with sections of diorite -- forming a pattern like oyster marquetry -- within wide white marble borders, which are inset with stylized flowerheads and laurel between squares of marble at the four corners.

The Bettine, Lady Abingdon Collection. Bequeathed by Mrs T. R. P. Hole

One of a large number of pieces of French furniture, ceramics, metalwork, books and other decorative arts, from the Empire period and earlier, acquired in Paris by Charles Stuart (from 1828 1st Lord Stuart de Rothesay) (1779--1845). The Empire furnishings were probably purchased during his first period as ambassador to Paris (1815--1824), the earlier furnishings during his second embassy (1828--30). The Empire furnishings may have been intended for a London house. He acquired 4 Carlton House Terrace, where improvements were carried out from 1827 to 1831, and he moved in in 1834. Older furnishings were more probably purchased for his country house, Highcliffe Castle, Hampshire (now Dorset), which was remodelled and enlarged in the most ambitious Gothic style from 1830 to 1834, with some work continuing throughout the 1830s. In 1841 the house in Carlton House Terrace was let, and the family moved their London residence to Whitehall Yard. It was possibly at that time -- or in 1845, the date of Lord Stuart de Rothesay's death -- that the Empire furnishings were moved to Highcliffe.
Lord Stuart de Rothesay's collections were inherited in 1867 by his younger daughter Louisa, Lady Waterford (1818--1891), who maintained Highcliffe Castle. She left the house and its collections to her distant cousin Major-General Edward Stuart Wortley (1857--1934). When his younger daughter Elizabeth ('Bettine') married Montagu Bertie, 8th Earl of Abingdon, in 1928, he bought the castle and its contents from his father-in-law. The Abingdons sold Highcliffe and most of its contents in 1949, but retained the present group of furniture and some other pieces. After her husband's death in 1963, Lady Abingdon lived for much of the time with her close friends Mr and Mrs Tahu Hole, to whom she bequeathed all her personal possessions on her death in 1978. Tahu Hole died in 1985, and a year later his widow Joyce approached the Museum and offered the collection as a bequest. She died in December 1986, and in accordance with her will the Museum chose those items that it wished to add to its collections. Other items from the collection were sold to benefit the Museum, and the proceeds added to the funds bequeathed.

Historical significance: The taste for fossil marbles was well established in the first quarter of the 19th century, and was a development of the late 18th-century enthusiasm for minerals, shells and other types of natural history materials. It paralleled the taste for native French hardwoods with interesting figure, which also became a popular fashion in the early 19th century.
The type of diorite used here came from Corsica, birthplace of Napoleon, and it was known as both 'Marbre de Corse' and Napoleonite. It became particularly fashionable in the period 1800--20 -- perhaps as a specific compliment to to the Emperor.

That Sir Charles Stuart should be interested in this table is not surprising, in view of the large quantities of architectural marbles that he acquired for the building of Highcliffe Castle.

A smaller console table, of similarly restrained good quality, was sold from the estate of Lady Abingdon at Christie's (London), 10 December 1987, lot 100.

This console table, in the French Empire style, has a marble top veneered with diorite (a fossil marble), reflecting an enthusiasm for minerals, shells and other types of natural history that was highly fashionable in both France and Britain in the early 19th century. The diorite used here is called Napoleonite as it came from Corsica, the emperor's birthplace. The table forms part of a group of furniture purchased in Paris by Lord Stuart de Rothesay, who served twice as British ambassador there (1815-1824 and 1828-1830). Stuart de Rothesay acquired a large quantity of French Empire furniture, which he later brought back to Britain to use both in his London home and at Highcliffe Castle, the house in Dorset that he built in 1830-1834.

W.12:1 to 3-1987