Carved to exceptional naturalistic effect, the base of the present console table takes the shape of a pear tree entwined with vines, its roots firmly planted in a grassy knoll, lush with vegetation. With shaped Breccia Capitolina marble top.
The fashion for such tables had been initiated in seventeenth-century Italy by the preeminent artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), who – whilst primarily celebrated as a sculptor – was also active as a painter and as a furniture designer. As observed by scholar Alvar González-Palacios, it is amply recorded that “Bernini took punctilious care with the supports of his statues”, including for the pedestal of his renowned Apollo and Daphne in Rome’s Villa Borghese. In about 1617, Bernini carved a Carrara marble figure of the martyred Saint Lawrence that is considered by many a masterpiece of his early career, visible today in Florence’s Palazzo...
Category
17th Century Italian Antique Breccia Marble Side Tables
MaterialsMarble, Breccia Marble