A Louis XIV Style Brass-Inlaid Marquetry Console Table
After the design by André-Charles Boulle

- 19th century French console table in the Louis XIV style inspired by André-Charles Boulle designs

- Elaborate brass inlay on tortoiseshell ground, gilded bronze mounts, and cabriole legs with female figures

- Top inlaid with a chariot scene after engravings by Cornelis de Bos

Constructed from ebony, with excellent hand-chased and gilded bronze mounts, the shaped console table inlaid with fine 'première-partie' marquetry of engraved brass designs on a tortoiseshell ground, supported on six legs consisting of four cabriole legs with female espagnolettes to the front and bacchic masks on the rear legs, while the remaining two straight tapering legs have toupie feet and acanthus leaf capitals, all joined by a curved stretchers; the bow-fronted frieze housing three lockable drawers with elaborate escutcheons.



The shaped top of conforming outline with a slight breakfront inlaid with a design after the engravings of Cornelis de Bos (c.1515-1555) incorporating a chariot drawn by bulls bearing putti, flanked by singeries, figures, and foliate rinceaux.
French, circa 1870



This table is inspired by a group of well-documented consoles made by André-Charles Boulle around 1705. There are three groups, many of which have preserved their marquetry tops of the same design as that on the present nineteenth century piece. 

This particular design derives from the second group, having both cabriole and tapered legs, distinguished by having female heads surmounting the cabriole legs. Eighteenth century examples include one formerly in the collection of Lady Salmond (sold Sotheby's Monaco 1986), and the pair from the Earl of Harrington, sold in 1963 and now fitted with marble tops.

According to the furniture historian Christopher Payne, the 19th century revivals of this famous model by André-Charles Boulle were precipitated in the 1870s, when the Bethnal Green Exhibition in London displayed two examples by Boulle, which are in the Wallace Collection today. However, Parisian workshops were producing this design as early as 1862, when Toms & Luscombe exhibited an example at the London International Exhibition.

Comparative Literature:

Payne, Christopher. Paris Furniture: The Luxury Market of the 19th Century. Château de Saint-Rémy: Éditions Monelle Hayot, 2018, p. 124, for a discussion of the 19th century versions.

Peter Hughes. The Wallace Collection : Catalogue of Furniture. London: Trustees of the Wallace Collection; 1996, Vol. II, pp. 752-757, no. 160, for a full discussion of the 18th century tables.