A GERMAN PARCEL-GILT, RED VERNIS MARTIN AND BEADWORK GAMES TABLE

Although also made in French cities such as Nevers, Dangu and Villiers, amongst the most celebrated manufacturers of bead-work was the factory patronised by Duke Carl I of Brunswick and placed under the direction of Johann Michael van Selow in the 1750s. 'N.N (sic) van Selow - a shell worker' is first recorded as resident in Brunswick in 1755 and in July of the following year the council received instructions to lend van Selow's atelier 400 Reichstaler. As his advertisement in the Braunschweiger Anzeige of 1756 reveals, he specialised in
both large and small tables in 'corallier' (literally 'coral' but almost certainly meaning beadwork). Two tables with 'Glasperlen Mosaik' attributed to van Selow are illustrated in H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des Deutschen Möbels, Munich, 1970, vol. II, figs. 881 and 882. This games-table, with its colourful glass-beaded cloth with a Roman mosaic chequer of red squares trellised amongst blue and gold, is likely to have served for a game such as 'fox and geese'.