We love zoomorphism and today we’re bringing you another piece that comprises several animalier elements, including one of our favorites- the serpent! This interesting carved walnut and faux bronze circular center table, circa 1820, is an example of Italian design in the early 19th century, which had been greatly influenced by French taste after the Napoleonic wars carried the Empire style across the continent. The base is comprised of four zoomorphic legs headed with lion masks and terminating in hairy paw feet. The legs are joined together by an x-shaped stretcher in the form of four serpents. The serpent heads meet in the center to support a sphere, while their tails appear to pierce each leg from the inside and continue on the outside. Figure 1 and 2 are related circular tables from southern Italy, also made in the first quarter of the 19h century, with zoomorphic legs that are connected by serpents.

The serpent has been used in ornamentation since ancient times and was reintroduced in 18th and 19th century decorative arts with the revived interest in classical civilizations. Though they have an almost universal presence, symbolic interpretations of serpents range from temptation and evil to regeneration and immortality. Groups of serpents, often knotted together, are also be found in heraldic symbolism denoting wisdom. Head over to Carlton Hobbs UK for more information about this great table!

We love zoomorphism and today we’re bringing you another piece that comprises several animalier elements, including one of our favorites- the serpent!

This interesting carved walnut and faux bronze circular center table, circa 1820, is an example of Italian design in the early 19th century, which had been greatly influenced by French taste after the Napoleonic wars carried the Empire style across the continent. This vogue was made fashionable by the aristocracy, but also by an emerging middle-class market which aided in the dissemination and support of workshops that continued throughout the century.   Animal motifs, including the lion mask, were elements of style that became popular in this period and are found on the present table, along with traces of neoclassicism in the floral roundels and garlands of the frieze. The exceptional table base is comprised of four zoomorphic legs headed with lion masks and terminating in hairy paw feet. The legs are joined together by an x-shaped stretcher in the form of four serpents. The serpent heads meet in the center to support a sphere, while their tails appear to pierce each leg from the inside and continue on the outside. Figure 1 and 2 are related circular tables from southern Italy, also made in the first quarter of the 19h century, with zoomorphic legs that are connected by serpents.

The serpent has been used in ornamentation since ancient times and was reintroduced in 18th and 19th century decorative arts with the revived interest in classical civilizations. Though they have an almost universal presence, symbolic interpretations of serpents range from temptation and evil to regeneration and immortality. Groups of serpents, often knotted together, are also be found in heraldic symbolism denoting wisdom

Of ebony, silver inlay, mounted with Tulyakov jasper, lapis lazuli, agate, amber, striated green glass and with silver inlay. Each in the form of a tapering obelisk, panelled to the front and inlaid with shaped hardstones, raised on four ball feet above a rectangular plinth panelled to the front and set with shaped stones above a molded edge set on a plain frieze with inlaid stone to the front, above a plain plinth base.

The present pair of oval paintings represent the mythological figures of Hercules and Cronos. The composition of the paintings is closely related to the forms of antique sculpture, here given greater animation and a baroque sense of drama. Hercules is shown at the height of his powers with a massive, bulky presence and the closely trimmed beard of a young man. He is often depicted in a similar pose, astride the Nemean lion, whose slaying was the first of his twelve labors. The second painting depicts Cronos or Saturn, the ancient god of agriculture who, in his Greek manifestation, features in the myth of creation and came to be associated with Time. He is always shown as an aged man, with a long beard and without the strident virility of the younger Hercules. As the deity of agriculture and of time, he rests on a scythe with a snake consuming itself, an ancient symbol of eternity, hanging from the withered branch on which he leans.

Watercolors on paper depict the following aircraft:

Albatros D III: Height 21.7" (55 cm); Width 26.8" (68 cm). Aereo de Caccia: Height 39.4" (100 cm); Width 29.9" (76 cm). AV Berg D I e Fiat R 2: Height 29.9" (76 cm); Width 39.4" (100 cm). Brandenburg A; Height 35.4" (90 cm); Width 28.3" (72 cm). Gotha G IV: Height 29.1" (74 cm); Width 41.3" (105 cm). Junkers J 7: Height 41.7" (106 cm); Width 29.5" (75 cm). Macchi M 316; Height 25.6" (65 cm); Width 38.6" (98 cm). SIA 7 B 2: Height 21.7" (55 cm); Width 30.7" (78 cm).

Watercolor on paper laid to canvas in original green painted molded frames.

Of giltwood with painted opaline glass panels. Of geometric form, the giltwood frame comprising gilt beaded and guilloche mouldings and fitted with panels of opaline glass painted with scrolling foliate decorations, the whole terminating in an acanthine finial.

Of gilt and white painted limewood. Each with candleholder and drip pan supported by carved acanthus leaves above a fluted tapering column centred by a bulb carved with stiff leaf decoration, the whole resing on a two tier base, the upper tier white painted with a carved gilt swag, the lower tier gilt and reeded.

Italian. Circa 1820. Of statuary marble with a cippolino marble turned socle.

Of various woods including boxwood, purple heart, mahogany and ebony. The rectangular top with curved corners with original black leather inset within a band of Greek key decoration and edged with a geometric border, the continuous shaped frieze inlaid with a striped pattern and concealing four drawers to the front opened by hidden locks and catches and concealing an extending writing surface to the reverse, the central ratcheted slide inlaid with a coronet. The knee-hole to the front flanked by two deep drawers, inlaid with a geometric patterns and released by a hidden mechanism below each drawer, the sides and reverse similarly inlaid, the curved corners inlaid with a lozenge pattern, the whole raised on four shaped and turned legs, each inlaid with tapering striped decoration.

A very similar table can be seen in William Odom's book, A History of Italian Furniture. The table Odom illustrates is of walnut with elongated drawers, however the identical Greek key frieze below the drawers, coupled with the closely comparable fluted tapering legs and fluted corner-posts strongly suggest that both pieces share the same maker. The table illustrated by Odom is described as being either 'Liguria or Emilia, Late XVIII Century'

The neoclassical style and architectural imagery of these later 18th-century marquetry commodes identify them as pieces designed and created by the artisans of the famous botteghe in Rolo, Italy, which by that time was known as the center for high-quality marquetry furniture. The Rolese workshops had been producing fine intarsia work since the 1400s, in the illusionistic style established by the brothers Cristoforo (1448-1491) and Lorenzo (1425-1477) Canozi da Lendinara. In the 18th-century, the entire region of Emilia-Romana had become a hub of neoclassicism, inspired by the arrival in 1753 of Ennemond-Alexandre Petitot to serve as court architect to the Duke of Parma. Under Petitot's influence, the artisans of Rolo began producing furniture that was neoclassical in form, but still decorated with Renaissance imagery inspired by the Lendinara brothers' work. The present commodes, with their rectilinear form and perspectival architectural decoration, are an example of this.

Italian. Circa 1950. Piero Fornasetti (1913-1988), one of Europe's most celebrated and innovative post-war decorative artists, produced only one design for corner furniture. Dating from the early 1950s, the present piece uses one of Fornasetti's favourite decorative motifs, the shell. He used trophies of shells, along with other natural forms, to decorate a myriad of objects from furniture and fabrics to glassware and ceramics. It is likely that the present piece was the product of Fornasetti's lengthy collaboration with the great Italian architect and designer Gio Ponti, which began in the late 1940s. Ponti had achieved fame as a furniture designer as early as the 1920s, and his strong appreciation of orament made Fornasetti his ideal partner. 'In our age of pronounced distrust of decoration, wrote Ponti in 1962, 'Fornasetti happily reveals its importance.'

The Tops Probably Italian. Eighteenth Century. The Bases English. Nineteenth Century. The present pair of tabletops is a fine example of the use of legno silicizzato, or silicified wood, in furniture. These fossils, which usually date from the late Triassic period, were prized for having the strength typical of hardstones, along with the well-preserved and attractive appearance of the plants they originally were. The extremely slow process by which the wood is silicified, replacing the organic cells with minerals over millions of years, results in an opaque or translucent stone with a recognizable grain pattern, in colors ranging from white to shades of brown or green. The unmistakable wood patterns seen in specimens of legno silicizzato undoubtedly contributed to their use in early furniture, for scientific interest as well as for their decorative appeal. One of the most famous examples of a fossilized wood tabletop is found on a guéridon in the collection of Versailles.

In 1819, John Howard Galton, son of Samuel Galton Jr. and Lucy Barlcay of Dudson House, Birmingham, was married to Isabella Strutt, daughter of Joseph Strutt, Mayor of Derby and Isabel Douglas. This table was made in honor of the marriage, with both families' crests and coats-of-arms displayed on its top using inlaid marble and hardstone decoration. The large shield shows the Galton coat-of-arms, with a small shield inside it showing the coats-of-arms of the Strutt and Douglas families. Above are the crests of the Galtons and the Strutts. The top's exquisite quality suggests it was made in one of the leading Italian workshops, where English noblemen often commissioned lapidary items. Its base has a pleasing Grecian simplicity, and traces of an unusual dark green coating indicating that it originally resembled bronze. The Galtons' home was Hadzor Hall, former home of Katherine of Aragon. The table remained there until 1929, when John Howard's grandson, the last of the Galton line, died.

This table was designed circa 1963 by English sculptor Henry Moore (1898-1986), for the living room of his home in Forte dei Marmi, Italy. It was made entirely out of travertine, one of Moore's favorite stones, which is a porous, yet durable, sedimentary rock that is used primarily in buildings, and which Moore used for sculptures including one commissioned by UNESCO, Paris. The stone was quarried near Rome, and the table was made by the Henraux workshop in Querceta, near Forte dei Marmi. The entire design and construction process of the present table was carried out during "one long summer holiday period", and it remained in the family's Italian vacation home until Henry Moore's death, after which it was inherited by his daughter, Mary Moore Danowski. According to Moore's daughter, apart from two wooden carved benches made in the early 1920s, this table is the only piece of furniture Henry Moore ever created.

This tabletop is inlaid with stone images of Masonic symbols, including in its central section a doorway representing Obedience, a paved floor (Humility), and two columns (Creation and Salvation). The octagonal shape of the tabletop is also symbolic: it is derived from the "square upon square", an important design in Freemasonry. The border of the table is filled with the working tools of a stonemason, which are all given symbolic meaning by Freemasons: the level implies equality; the square represents morality; and the trowel symbolizes unity, "spreading the cement of the Brotherhood" of the society.

The top of this table is composed of a fragment of an ancient Roman floor mosaic, possibly from somewhere like the ancient Roman dwelling called Casa Rural das Ruinas in Milreu, Portugal. The baths at this villa, which was built and expanded between the 1st and 4th centuries AD, still have their brightly-colored tile decorations of marine life, including fish very similar to the one on this tabletop, and the same set of distinctive geometric shapes, which may represent mollusks and jellyfish.