A SWEDISH GILTWOOD AND PORPHYRY CONSOLE TABLE

The Stockholm cabinet-maker Pehr Ljung (1743-1819) specialised in carved giltwood items of furniture in late Gustavian style, and was apparently particularly renowned for his finely-carved mirrors and console tables, the latter often with precious porphyry tops such as the present example ('Porphyre, la Pierre Royale', exh. cat, Paris, 1990, fig. 96). Ljung supplied 'rikt skulpterade ramar' to Duchess Hedvig Elisabet Charlotta in 1784 and various items to Haga. A distinctive feature of his console tables are the portrait roundels to the frieze, imitating ceramic roundels, which enables us to attribute the current table to him (T. Sylven and E. Welander-Berggren, Speglar, Stockholm, 2000, pp. 165-167). Ljung worked at almost all the Royal residences but particularly at the Royal Palace in Stockholm from 1792, when new decorations were being carried out for Duke Charles to the designs of Louis Masreliez (H. Groth, 'Neoclassicism in the North', London 1990, pp. 28-29)