Console Table

France

About 1730

  • Titles Console Table (Descriptive)
  • Medium oak, gilding, marble
  • Dimensions 33 1/4 x 56 1/2 x 27 1/2 in. (84.5 x 143.5 x 69.9 cm)
  • Credit Line Eugenia Woodward Hitt Collection, 1991.87
  • Work Type table
  • Classification Furniture

See More of the Collection

Rectangular blue jasper plaque with white relief Marcus Scoevola before King Porsena, featuring one man sitting in a chair whilst three soldiers are surrounding a fire.
Oval medallion with profile portrait of Jean-Francois Marmontel (1723-1799), French writer and dramatist, born in the Limousin region (noe Haute Vienne). Educated at the Jesuit college at Mauriac. Marmontel became a teacher of philosophy at the Bernardine seminary at Toulouse. He attracted the notice of Voltaire, who advised him to go to Paris where he arrived in 1745. A tragedy produced in 1747 at once gave him celebrity. An introduction to Madame de Pompadour brought him the place of secretary to her brother, the Marquis de Marigny. Marmontel frequented the salon of Madame Geoffrin, and after the death of his friend, Boissy, he was given the Mercure de France. After a great deal of opposition Marmontel was elected to the Academy in 1763, and in 1783 was appointed Secretary and historiographer of France. He retired to Normandy at the outbreak of the revolution, dying there in 1799. This model comes from an unsigned engraving dated 1765
Green jasperware saucer with white relief leaf border
Solid light blue jasper tea canister with applied white jasper relief decoration, bulbous in shape on round foot, the lower body engine turned, on one side of the canister figures from the Domestic Employment series and on the other the scene of Poor Maria featuring a seated young woman and her dog, on the shoulder a band of overlapping acanthus leaves and a band of roulette-made circles at the top of the short neck, the foot with a band of white around it, the cover (likely a marriage) with acanthus leaves and a pinched ball finial.