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RICHARD REDDING ANTIQUES |
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RICHARD REDDING ANTIQUES |
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A wonderful Louis XV carved giltwood console d’appui, the rectangular-shaped platform with demi-lune front and gadrooned frieze above a tapering shaft with scrolls to the sides centred by a magnificent laughing grotesque moustached mask head wearing a plumed headdress issuing from scrolling frills above acanthus leaves and scrolls terminated by a foliate and scallop shell boss Paris, date circa 1715-20 Height 61 cm. Carved and gilded wooden consoles or brackets were intended to support small ornaments mainly porcelain vases but also clocks. While they were particularly popular during the first third of the eighteenth century they continued in fashion for far longer. For instance as late as 1768 Caraccioli commented upon them, noting ‘il en faut dans un appartement, pour qu’il soit à la mode” (Louis-Antoine de Caraccioli “Dictionnaire Critique, Pittoresque et Sentencieux”, 1768, vol. I, p. 66). Today such consoles are very rare, expensive and highly prized by collectors for the display of Chinese objects, porcelain and statuettes. |