Rococo console table

Rococo console table, Unknown carvers and gilders in Paris
Oleg Yunakov, CC BY-SA 4.0

A gilded wall table with a marble top – part of the rococo room’s whole of mirrors, panelling and carving.

The console table was not a piece of furniture to be moved about but part of the wall. In rococo state rooms the architect designed table, mirror, panelling and cornices as a whole, and the table was fixed beneath the mirror between the windows.

The forms came from Paris, where ornament designers such as Nicolas Pineau and Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier spread rocaille across Europe in engravings. François de Cuvilliés, trained in Paris, brought the style to Munich: in the Hall of Mirrors at the Amalienburg of 1734–1739, tables, mirrors and silvered stucco are parts of the same room.

Materials: Carved and gilded wood, often lime or oak; marble top

Manufacture: Carved by sculptors and water-gilded with gold leaf over gesso. The table was fixed to the wall beneath a mirror.

Asymmetrical rocaille – shell and wave forms – in the middle of the apron.

Curved, S-shaped legs that end in scrolls and meet in a stretcher with a cartouche.

Only the front is worked: the table was made to stand against the wall, beneath a mirror.