拍品专文
Within a richly moulded frame, each antique-stippled top displays Fortuna amongst laurel-tipped Roman foliage; while the acanthus-enriched frame celebrates Roman virtue's triumph with a palm-bearing Cupid born by a serpent-killing eagle and supported by Venus's embowed dolphins emerging from its foliate 'claw'.
This pair of tables relates most closely to one dated 1697 in the Herrenhausen Museum, Hannover, which has a putto standing on a flatly scrolling four-legged plinth and supporting a closely related table top (H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des deutschen Möbels, Munich, 1970, vol. II, fig. 63). Herrenhausen was built by the Duke of Braunschweig and Prince of Hannover in 1665. His court was extremely prosperous and rivalled Prussia and Saxony in both patronage and craftsmen.
A pair of tables in the Grnes Gewölbe, Dresden, displays a similar eagle support and beneath it a child standing on dragon-carved feet, which are not dissimilar to this pair (G. Haase, Dresdner Möbel, Leipzig, 1983, p. 321, fig. 167a). Those tables are believed to have been made circa 1730, possibly by Johann Benjamin Thomae (1682-1751). Thomae apprenticed to Heinrich Täschau in Dresden in 1694 and then travelled until 1699 before returning to Dresden, where he was subsequently mentioned for works executed at the Grnes Gewölbe. It is not improbable that the tables in Dresden were inspired by the prototypes in Hannover, or indeed that the cabinet-maker was the same.
This pair of tables relates most closely to one dated 1697 in the Herrenhausen Museum, Hannover, which has a putto standing on a flatly scrolling four-legged plinth and supporting a closely related table top (H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des deutschen Möbels, Munich, 1970, vol. II, fig. 63). Herrenhausen was built by the Duke of Braunschweig and Prince of Hannover in 1665. His court was extremely prosperous and rivalled Prussia and Saxony in both patronage and craftsmen.
A pair of tables in the Grnes Gewölbe, Dresden, displays a similar eagle support and beneath it a child standing on dragon-carved feet, which are not dissimilar to this pair (G. Haase, Dresdner Möbel, Leipzig, 1983, p. 321, fig. 167a). Those tables are believed to have been made circa 1730, possibly by Johann Benjamin Thomae (1682-1751). Thomae apprenticed to Heinrich Täschau in Dresden in 1694 and then travelled until 1699 before returning to Dresden, where he was subsequently mentioned for works executed at the Grnes Gewölbe. It is not improbable that the tables in Dresden were inspired by the prototypes in Hannover, or indeed that the cabinet-maker was the same.