A FRENCH BRASS-MOUNTED ROSEWOOD TABLE À OUVRAGE

The sun-flowered and china-railed work-table (table à ouvrage, table en cabaret à café or Table à thé), is designed in the Louis XVI antique fashion. It relates to the 1760s Grecian altar-tripod table called an 'athénienne'; and to the work-table (chiffonière) featured in the National Gallery's 1760s portrait of Madame de Pompadour by Drouais (see A. Boutemy, 'Jean-Francois Oeben Meconnu', Gazette des Beaux-Arts, April 1964, pp. 223 and 224; and discussion of the related tables in O. Hughes', The Wallace Collection: Catalogue of Furniture, London, 1996, vol. II, nos. 22 and 212).