Small table of boulle marquetry on a ground of brass

Case of oak with walnut drawers. The top veneered with contre-partie marquetry of engraved turtleshell, pewter and copper on a brass ground, the marquetry showing two dancing men playing percussion instruments, above a pewter mask and surrounded by trophies musical instruments. Scrolls and tendrils frame the composition. The brass veneer is edged with a border of ebony.

The top is asymmetrical: two straight edges, one longer than the other, are joined by a third curved edge. A frieze composed of eleven small lambrequins sits beneath the table top. Each lambrequin is veneered with a marquetry panel on which engraved brass is inlaid into a horn ground. Each marquetry panel sits within a bronze border. At the bottom of each lambrequin is a gilt bronze mask. The central three lambrequins on the front, curved edge of the table form a drawer front.

The table legs are splayed, veneered on all sides with brass inlaid with engraved turtleshell. There is a female mask, wearing a laurel wreath, at the top of each leg. A central stretcher between the legs supports a vase (assumed to be a later addition) of patinated and gilt brass.

Bequeathed by John Jones

Because of their unusual shape, there have long been doubts about the authenticity of these tables. Recently, however, research has been done to link them to a group of furniture made by the workshop of André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732), cabinet-maker to Louis XIV.

In 1701, seven pieces of furniture were delivered by Boulle for the sixteen year old Duchesse de Bourgogne's newly-furnished apartments at the Château de la Ménagerie (a pavilion in the park at the Palace of Versailles). An inventory of the Ménagerie drawn up in 1718 described, as part of this group, a pair of small tables. In 1985, Lunsingh Scheurleer identified these as being very similar to the V&A's pair. The only problem with this identification is that the V&A's tables are in contre-partie marquetry, rather than the première-partiesuggested by the inventory description ('première-partie'describes marquetry with inlays into a turtleshell rather than a brass ground). While this means that 1015 and 1015A-1882 are not the Ménagerie tables, it is now believed that they may also have been made in Boulle's workshop, using the veneers cut from the première-partiepair.

The tables appear to be mentioned in English collections in 1853, when an identical-sounding pair were shown in an exhibition at Gore House in Kensington, on loan from George Field, Esq. Field again loaned his tables to the Special Exhibition of Works of Art held at the South Kensington Museum in 1862.

The tables were bequeathed to the V&A in 1882 as part of the John Jones collection. Jones made his fortune as a military tailor, kitting out the armies of the British Empire. He was also an avid collector of French furniture and porcelain, particularly of items made between about 1660 and 1800. These two tables were placed in the dining room of his house, underneath two windows. A pair of Sèvres vases (743 and A-1882), formerly in Horace Walpole's collection, were displayed by Mr Jones on top of the tables.

The unusual form of these tables, with one edge longer than the other, makes them something of a mystery. While small tables with a triangulated plan would usually be put into the corner of a room, this placement does not seem to make sense of the longer edge found here. The continuous decoration on the tables also suggests that they were intended to be seen in the round.

For many years the odd shape of this table and its pair (1015A-1882) led curators to question whether they were authentic. In 1985 a Dutch scholar suggested that they might be the pair of tables made in 1701 by the French cabinetmaker André-Charles Boulle for the apartments of the Duchesse de Bourgogne at the Château de la Ménagerie in the park at Versailles. The duchess was the young wife of Louis XIV’s grandson, and the Château de la Ménagerie was refurbished for her from 1699, when she was just 13, as a pleasure pavilion rather than as a residential palace. Her tables differed from the present ones, however, for they were inlaid with brass and other materials on a ground of turtleshell (the technique that became known as ‘boulle marquetry’). These tables are in the reverse technique, known as contre-partie, with a ground of brass. So, although they may come from the same workshop, they are not the Ménagerie tables.

1015-1882