Louis XVI Style Centre Table After The Model By Jean-Henri Riesener By Paul Sormani

Object Description

A Louis XVI Style Mahogany Gilt-Bronze Centre Table After The Model By Jean-Henri Riesener by Paul Sormani.

Stamped ‘Paul Sormani 10 rue Charlot à Paris’.

This fine mahogany centre table has a lattice parquetry top with a pierced gallery above a gilt-bronze foliate frieze opening to a central drawer flanked by two short drawers. The table is raised on tapering legs terminating in foliate-cast sabots.

The table is a variation on the famous model by Jean-Henri Riesener , known as the Table des Muses, supplied in 1783 at a cost of 6,000 livres for the Cabinet Intérieur of Madame Elizabeth (sister of Louis XVI) at Versailles.

During the Directory, the table was used in the Salle du Conseil des Directeurs; later moved by the Empress Eugénie to the Petit Trianon, where it remains today. The eighteenth century version by Riesener incorporated a marquetry top depicting the muses of Astronomy and Science.

Object Literature

Alcouffe, Dioin-Tenenbaum, Lefebure, ‘The Furniture Collection in the Louvre’, Vol I, Edition Faton, (Dijon), 1993;p.272.

Mestdagh, Camille and Pierre Lécoules, ‘L’Ameublement d’art français : 1850-1900, Editions de l’Amateur’, (Paris), 2010.

Meyer, Jonathan, ‘Great Exhibitions – London, New York, Paris, Philadelphia, 1851-1900′, Antique Collectors’ Club, (Woodbridge, UK), 2006.

Ledoux – Lebard, Denise, ‘Les Ébénistes du XIXe Siècle’, Editions de L’Amateur (Paris), 1984; pp. 583-588.

Kopf, Silas, ‘A Marquetry odyssey: Historical objects and Personal work’, First edition, 2008; p.109

Object Details