Offered by Franck Baptiste Paris
Rare pedestal table in finely chiseled bronze and gilded with mercury.
The nervously twisted uprights ending in lions' paws are connected to each other by two spacers, one in bronze in the lower part and a smaller one in the central part, acting as a shelf.
The latter is made of sea green marble surrounded by a finely guilloché bronze ingot mold.
The top of the uprights terminated by external windings that support the Egyptian tiger granite top, also surrounded by an ingot mould, similar to that of the tablet.
Solid oak top frame.
Perfect state of preservation, original mercury gilding still very fresh and extremely fine carving.
Parisian work from the end of the 18th century around 1790-1800
Dimensions:
Height: 78.5cm; Diameter: 39.5cm
-A similar pedestal table from the Comte de Ganay, which was probably in pair with ours, went on sale at Christie's Paris on November 23, 2022, lot 12 (21,420 euros)
-A very close pair is exhibited at the Chateau de Champ de Bataille in Normandy.
Our opinion :
The rare pedestal table that we present is a very fine example of metal furniture made in Paris at the very end of the 18th century for the elite of society, it is similar to blue porcelain cassolettes with twisted "tire" mounts. -stoppers", made by Thomire under the direction of the haberdasher Dominique Daguerre and mentioned in the archives of the Sévres factory between 1784 and 1790
Under the impetus of very great artisans such as Gouthière, Pitoin, Remond or Thomire, bronze furniture will experience considerable growth.
This golden age will of course be that of clocks and lamps, but also that of much more opulent pieces, the result of the collaboration of bronziers with other craftsmen, whether with porcelain or crystal factories or with cabinetmakers who put to the point of furniture where bronze dominates.
We can obviously mention the collaboration of Thomire and Adam Weisweiler for pedestal tables with bamboo shafts combining Thuja wood and gilded bronze. But others will go even further, creating metal furniture entirely made of bronze, including the forms revisit the Roman and Etruscan productions of antiquity.
These rooms are often embellished with stone trays resulting from excavations brought back mainly from the campaigns of Italy and Egypt, such as porphyry or here the "tiger" granite that tops our pedestal table.
Obviously this production is extremely expensive and requires significant resources, which is intended only for a princely elite.
With its very fine carving and its fluid and refined shape, our pedestal table perfectly symbolizes French "chic" and represents in our eyes the quintessence of the art of bronze at the end of the 18th century in France.
