A NORTH ITALIAN CREAM-PAINTED AND PARCEL-GILT CONSOLE TABLE

The design of this striking console table, with winged maiden herm monopodia supports à l'antique, relates to the oeuvre of French architect-designers Charles Percier (1764-1838) and Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine (1762-1853). The 1812 edition of their popular work Recueil des Décorations Intérieures influenced many Italian designers working in the Empire taste such as Giuseppe Berlendis, Pietro Ruga, and Lorenzo Roccheggiani, whose 1811 publication entitled Invenzioni diverse di mobili ed utensili Sacri e Profani was directly influenced by Percier and Fontaine’s catalogue. The winged figures of the present table relate to not only Ruga and Roccheggiani’s bold neoclassical creations from the abovementioned catalogue but also to those of Luigi Canonica and Giuseppe Foresti, whose furniture designs were often executed in a gold and white or cream color scheme in the Lombard workshops. The particularly bold palmettes and the plump fluted bodies of the herm supports indicate that this table was conceived in the later phase of the Italian Empire style, which persevered until the mid-1840s and remained popular with both the aristocracy and the fashion-conscious bourgeoisie. Designers active duing this period include Antonio Basoli, Domenico Moglia, Gennaro Aveta, and Giuseppe Borsato, all of whom were highly prolific in the 1830s.