ONE FIRST QUARTER 18TH CENTURY, THE OTHER LATE 19TH CENTURY

The inverted obelisk-shaped legs with scrolling ‘capitals’ found on these console tables is typical of Piemontese and Ligurian workshops of the first decades of the eighteenth century. With the highly sculptural legs and the apron further augmented by finer, lower relief arabesque and strapwork surface decoration, these tables were inspired by late Louis XIV French models. These finer decorative elements are also strongly reminiscent of the carved and stucco decoration in interior architecture -- evident in many of the palaces in and around Turin. Such tables were often manufactured by court carvers and sculptors mainly as part of the palatial furnishings of the Savoy residences near Turin. Genoese production was closely related, often incorporating dolphins and aquatic motifs to the decorative scheme. Related models are those in the Palazzo Reale of Turin, Camera dell'Alcova, illustrated in R. Antonetto, Minusieri ed Ebanisti del Piemonte, Torino, 1985, p. 195, fig. 270; two tables in private collections, illustrated R. Antonetto, Il Mobile Piemontese del Settecento, Vol. 2, s.l., 2010, p. 202, figs. 1b and 1c.; for two further examples also in the Palazzo Reale, in the Sala dei Paggi, see V. Viale, Mostra del Barocco Piemontese, exh. cat., Turin, 1963, pls. 52 and 53. Other comparable tables are illustrated in E. Quaglino, Il Mobile Piemontese, Milan, 1966, p. 71 and in L. Malle, Stupinigi: Un Capolavoro del Settecento Europeo tra Barochetto e Classicismo, Turin, 1968, p. 381.