A pair of consoles in the antique manner, Rome by 1770

A pair of carved and lacquered wooden consoles in the antique style. The decoration of rams' heads and garlands of laurel is inspired by the sculpted motifs often seen on ancient cippi and altars, many of which were documented in the Roman forum by travellers on the Grand Tour and ornamentalists who studied in Rome. Above all, it is a combination of decorative motifs that was particularly appreciated by the French ornamentalist Jean-Charles Delafosse, a prolific designer who was one of the main purveyors of the early Neoclassicism, which in the 1760s was dubbed ‘antique taste’ or ‘Greek taste’.

The distinctive feature of these consoles is the coexistence of these neoclassical motifs, whose novelty breaks away from the legant contours of the preceding period, with the jagged shells and acanthus leaves emblematic of the Rococo taste. The juxtaposition of these ornaments from the past and a new aesthetic is characteristic of this period of transition between Rococo and mature Neoclassicism. A similar proposal can be seen in a design for a guéridon (small table) by Delafosse, exhibited in Calouste Gulbekian Museum in 2006. (catalogue Designing the decor, n°94)

The exuberant interpretation of these motifs is above all characteristic of the implementation of this new style by Roman craftsmen in the 1770s, under the influence not only of Delafosse's prints, but also of artists such as Luigi Valadier and Giovanni Battista Piranesi. The vertical motif of a shell and a garland of foliage at the centre of our consoles can be found in the decoration of the altar frontal in the cathedral of Monréale in Sicily, designed by Luigi Valladier in 1768. The ram's head and garland motifs were frequently used by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, notably in the design of a console base published in Rome in 1769 in his collection Diversi manieri d'adornare I camini (plate 11).