FLORENCE, SECOND QUARTER 18TH CENTURY

The design of this figural console table carved with bold twisting scrolls, strapwork and grotesque masks, figures and putti are typical of the elaborate work of Roman and Tuscan intagliatori of the early 18th century. It relates to examples executed by Giovan Battista Foggini in the late 17th and early 18th century, particularly to those made after designs by Diacinto Maria Marmi. Two related drawings by Marmi for designs of supports for consoles incorporating female busts and volutes are in the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe degli Uffizi in Florence, (A. González Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto, Milan, 1986, vol. II, p. 31, fig. 13). A pair of very similar console tables was in the collection of Baron Mayer de Rothschild (1818-1874) in the Dining Room at Mentmore Towers, Buckinghamshire, sold Sotheby's house sale, 18-27 May 1977, lot 882; while another related Roman console of similar design but with a simpler stretcher without the figural putti, from the Collection of Robert de Balkany was sold in these Rooms, 22-23 March 2017 for £106,250.