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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

176-1885