A PAIR OF EMPIRE-STYLE ORMOLU-MOUNTED WHITE MARBLE CONSOLES

These tables' Egyptian sphinx monopodia reflect the French antique fashion encouraged in the 1790s by the connoisseur Baron Dominique-Vivant Denon, who participated in Napoleon's 1798 Egyptian campaign, and by the architect Charles Percier (d. 1838), author of Palais, Maisons, et autre Edifices de Rome, 1784. This pattern of Grecian cut-shouldered sphinx, with Egyptian striated vest, derives from those on a pair of console tables, in the Russian 'Jacob' style named after the Parisian ébénistes, which were commissioned by Paul I at the time of his succession in 1797. The latter, which are likely to have been designed by Vincenzo Brenna (d. 1820), were executed in silver for Mikhailovsky Castle, St Petersburg (see A. Cheneviere, Russian Furniture, The Golden Age, London, 1988, p. 88, fig. 69).