In mid-16th century Renaissance Italy, the production of panels and tabletops using inlays of semiprecious stone began, with materials and geometric designs deriving from classical Roman motifs.

You can now visit our Flickr Album for images of the tabletops to be included in our exhibition.

Snakes, more commonly referred to as serpents in mythology and religion, have held important positions in the dogmas of many cultures throughout history. They feature in the art and lore of Egyptian, Native American, African, Christian, Aboriginal, Indian, Judaic, and Ancient Greek (Fig. 1) and Roman civilization.

Irish. Circa 1810. Of marble. The rectangular top with moulded edge, raised on a flat spreading support to the rear with spade foot and to the front in curved leg, with acanthine carving to the top, terminating in paw feet.

English. Circa 1820. Of mahogany and inlaid boxwood. The demi-lune top with cross-banded border and inlaid stringing above a shaped undermould above two shelves edged with boxwood stringing divided by tapering posts inlaid with boxwood panels, edged with stringing and continuing to form four tapering legs, each leg terminating in a square tapering foot.

Possibly Sicilian. Circa 1735. Of carved and painted fruitwood. The bow-fronted marble top above the shaped apron carved with foliate c-scrolls against a diaper pattern ground, the lower edge carved with rocaille scrolls, the whole raised on four scrolling cabriole legs each headed by a carved shell and carved with acanthine decoration, each leg with scrolling spur to the front and terminating in a carved foot, the legs joined by a scrolling foliate carved x-shaped stretcher centred by a carved shell.

Of mahogany, verre églomisé, with marbleized decoration. The incurved superstructure set with a verre églomisé mounted drawer flanked by repeating lozenge marbleized decoration. The projecting ends set with black and silver foliate verre églomisé panels. The lower section with a reeded tambour above a verre églomisé mounted and geometrically inlaid sliding false drawer front opening to reveal two banks of narrow drawers flanked by foliate verre églomisé panels. The four cylindrical tapered legs headed by faceted sections with inset triangular foliate verre églomisé panels. The legs united by an incurved fretted stretcher painted with marbleized decoration.

Of finely figured mahogany. The rectangular ratcheted top above a plain frieze set with a single full length drawer fitted with a leather lined writing slide and lidded compartments. The front set with two rococo cast brass swan neck handles. The whole raised on four moulded and chamfered straight legs ending in a replaced block foot.

Of mahogany. The rectangular top with leather inset, rounded to the corners with a moulded edge above a plain frieze, the top raised on two curving X-shaped trestle ends with two foliate paterae to the centre, joined by two circular turned stretchers, the lower lengths moulded to the upper face, each leg terminating in a brass cap and raised on castors.

Of finely figured amboyna. The serpentine shaped top above a plain undulating frieze, fitted at each end with a drawer centred by a gilt bronze rococo escutcheon. The whole raised on four well drawn canted cabriole legs.

French. Circa 1925. The present table bears a number of characteristics typical of the work of Clément Mère. The use of patinated leather to decorative effect, often incorporating stylised floral patterns, together with the employment faux shagreen engraved ivory decoration can be seen in many of Mère's pieces. The present table also demonstrates Mère's adherence to more traditional classical forms of French furniture. Mère was born in Bayonne in 1870 and began his career as a Salon painter. Mère began designing furniture in the 1910s, and the refinement of his designs and his use of Egyptian motifs was an important part of the evolution of the Art Deco style in France. By 1924 it was clear that Mère was a highly regarded Parisian cabinet-maker. He produced a cabinet for Lord Rothermere and was commissioned to design a desk for Robert de Rothschild, now part of the collection of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

English. Circa 1810. The present elegantly conceived table can be attributed to the furniture designer Henzell Gouch, a sofa-table of whose is part of the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and as such it represents an important contribution to the our knowledge of Gouch’s work. A closely related example of a piece known to be by Gouch’s is a sofa table, signed by the maker and dated 1815, illustrated in Christopher Gilbert’s Marked London Furniture 1700-1840. That piece follows the form of the present table with an ebony base conceived of lyre-shaped trestle ends, raised on curving legs and joined by a circular stretcher, supporting a rectangular top curving to the corners. In both pieces the top, above a plain broad frieze and framed in gilt brass, is set with oriental decoration surrounded by an elaborately patterned border. The use of brass inlay, however, distinguishes the present table from the example illustrated by Gilbert.

English. Circa 1845. The segmented top found on the present table was patented in March 1835 by Robert Jupe. Together with John Johnstone, the firm Johnstone, Jupe & Co. produced round and ovular tables that could be expanded not by pulling the table apart at the center and inserting rectangular leaves, but by expanding the table "so that the sections composing its surface may be caused to diverge from a common center and that the spaces caused thereby may be filled up by inserting leaves or filling pieces." The table, when turned, expands on an iron frame that shifts the table segments outward allowing room for wedge-shaped leaves. This iron mechanism topped with a brass plate would be engraved with the company's name, and a serial number would appear adjacent to the plate. The present table is stamped with number 5613. It is likely that only a small number of tables were produced.

English. Circa 1820. This highly unusual table is conceived in the distinctive manner of the renowned seventeenth-century Venetian sculptor and furniture maker Andrea Brustolon (1662 – 1732). The form of the table is highly inventive, with four full length figures forming the legs. They represent Prometheus chained at the wrists, Cinyras, the father of Adonis, who split open a myrrh tree from which emerged his new born son, and Mercury, who is depicted here as a beardless youth carrying a purse, his badge as one of the Roman gods of commerce. Hercules, one of Brustolon’s favorite characters is also shown, bearing a club and a lion’s skin. As well as representing a skilled interpretation of Brustolon’s style, the table also shares with Brustolon's work the highly unusual feature of being carved in boxwood. It is extremely rare to find a piece of furniture made wholly form boxwood.

English. Circa 1800.

Scagliola originated in Bavaria, and was kept secret until the mid-17th century. Around 1600 Blasius Fistulator and his son Wilhelm decorated the Reich Kapelle for Maximillian I: Wilhelm did a series of scagliola scenes from the life of Mary, including four landscapes, based on engravings by Albrecht Dürer. This tabletop's Rhineland hunting scene would have come from a contemporary painting or engraving by a Dutch or Flemish master such as Aelbert Cuyp, who traveled along the Rhine in the early 1650s. Maximillian I’s grandson, Max Emmanuel, moved some of Fistulator’s scagliola panels, reinstalling them circa 1725 in the Kammerkapelle. Johann Baptiste Zimmermann decorated the ceiling with stucco motifs that reappear in the frieze of this table's base, which appears to date from around 1725. It is possible that the top existed first as a panel on a wall: possibly one of the ones moved in 1725 by Max Emmanuel.

The Table English. Circa 1785. The Top Probably Rome. Circa 1600. This magnificent 16th-century Roman pietre dure top stands on an important neoclassical giltwood base, almost certain to have been made to a design by Thomas Leverton for the Drawing Room at Woodhall Park, the splendid mansion built in the 1780s for Sir Thomas Rumbold. The tabletop can be compared to a select group of similar pietre dure pieces that date from 1550 to 1620, which includes the Farnese Table, now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, the famed Richelieu table in the Galerie d’Apollon in the Louvre, an octagonal table in the Palazzo Quirinale in Rome, and a rectangular top from Fonthill Abbey. The present top shares a number of defining features with the aforementioned pieces that would suggest Roman manufacture during the second half of the 16th century. The technical virtuosity of the craftsmanship and the complexity of the design are enhanced by the great variety of stones employed.

Spain. First Half Of The Seventeenth Century. The Bases Made For The Tops Circa 1720. These tables belong to an elite group of silver furniture that includes a very similar silver tabletop in the Victoria and Albert museum, a silver mirror in the Wallace collection, and a silver table in the Rijksmuseum. The popularity of valuable and ornate items of silver furniture amongst the nobility in the 16th and 17th centuries originated in Spain and was carried throughout Europe. Furniture made using silver was perhaps the most coveted of decorative art objects in European palaces beginning in the Renaissance. As its popularity became more widespread, a small number of European manufactories in Paris, Hamburg, Copenhagen and particularly Augsburg developed a reputation for the excellence of their craftsmanship in silver; however, the vogue for silver furniture first appeared in Spain in the second half of the 16th century.

Rome. Circa 1770. The present table is strongly related to Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s “free and highly eclectic mode of classical design.” It features a large, striking slab of veneered bianco e nero marble, also known as Grand Antique, which came from the Pyrenees region of France. The present marble top is a superb example of a veneered surface where the craftsman has used a double bookmatch technique, meaning the adjoining surfaces have been cut from the same samples and opened to create a strikingly dramatic double-mirror-image effect. The furniture designs published by Piranesi in his Diverse Maniere d’Adornare i Camini of 1768 reveal the elaborate eclecticism that resulted from his creative adaptation of different stylistic influences in his later work. Piranesi was highly influential as one of the principal forces behind the birth and development of the neoclassical style in Europe.

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.