A bronze mounted mahogany table à thé

A very elegant Empire-style gilt bronze mounted mahogany table à thé, the upper tier with a rectangular top with splayed rounded corners supported by four beautiful gilt bronze outward facing caryatid winged Victories wearing diaphanous robes, lifting their hands to hold the top, the caryatids standing upon the top of the lower tier, which has a conformingly shaped top above a frieze mounted with wreaths and laurel leaf swags, with stars at each corner above mounted Apollo mask capitals, heading tapering legs that terminate in foliate wrapped sabots and castor feet
Paris, date circa 1870
The upper tier: Height 96 cm, width 77 cm, depth 44 cm. The lower tier: Height 67 cm, width 82 cm, depth 58 cm.
During the second half of the nineteenth century there was a resurgent interest in past historical styles in all aspects of the arts including silver, porcelain and furniture. This elegant table à thé, or tea table, takes as its inspiration the graceful lines and decorative elements of the Consulate and Empire periods that prevailed during the first two decades of the 1800s. During that period, designers and craftsmen looked back to antiquity, combining classical elements and decorative motifs to create a new work. Among those motifs were winged Victories, who here support the upper tier of the table. These classical winged beauties were used to advantage and became integral within artistic designs promoted by Napoleon’s chief architects and ornamentalistes, Charles Percier and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine. They were then recreated in bronze by Pierre-Philippe Thomire, Charles Galle and others as candelabra and supports for commodes, tables or other pieces of furniture. Other classical elements include wreaths and laurel leaf swags mounted around the rim of the table, as well as Apollo masks that act as capitals, heading each table leg. Apollo, the ancient sun god was also a common motif used in Empire furniture and other works of art. Above each Apollo masks is a star. Again, these were popular decorative motifs used on furniture during the early nineteenth century but rather than Greco-Roman, they were more commonly associated with ancient Egyptian art.
The great interest in past historical styles during the latter part of the nineteenth century is testified by large sections at the Expositions Universelles devoted entirely to copies of works of art from the Ancien Régime. At that period there was an increasing number of wealthy clients, such as Baron Ferdinand Rothschild and Lady Ashburton, whose tastes were rooted in the past and wanted to furnish their homes with such pieces. Due to the inevitable scarcity of original pieces such collectors often sought contemporary reproductions or similarly styled renditions. This they were happy to do since far from regarding such revival pieces as inferior, the public and critics alike greatly admired contemporary makers’ ability to combine the old style with modern manufacturing techniques. Among those ébénistes who specialised in creating the most sumptuous historical revival pieces were the bronziers and ébénistes Alfred Beurdeley (1847-1919), Henry Dasson (1825-1896) and Paul-Charles Sormani (b. 1848), whose work continues to attract the discerning collector.