FRANCE - ÉPOQUE RÉGENCE Lot n° 22

CONSOLE "AUX MUFLES DE LIONS" Gilded wood, Campan marble large mix H. 73 cm, W. 90 cm, D. 51 cm Some missing parts, gilded Provenance - Former collection of Baron Fould-Springer and Cécile de Rothschild - Christie's Paris Sale, March 11, 2003, lot 226 - Private Collection This superb gilded carved wood console is centred on shells surrounded by flowered scrolls. They are framed by egg-shaped scrolls with a frieze of scrolls and foliage spreading out widely. The arched feet are flanked at the top by lion mufles topped with foliage. In the lower part, the base is adorned with branches and foliage. The spacer is centred by a "walnut" depicting a lion's tufa surrounded by openwork motifs in rocaille style, the whole surmounted by two dragons and a central reinforcement with foliage decoration. The whole is surmounted by a Campan grand mix marble top. It was part of the collection of Baron Max Fould-Springer (1906-1999) and Cécile de Rothschild (1913-1995), sister of Baron Élie de Rothschild (1917-2007) who had married Liliane Fould-Springer (1916-2003), a set dispersed at auction in March 2003. All the ornamental vocabulary of the Regency is present in this work and bears witness to the influence of sculptors and ornamentalists such as Jules Degoullons, André Legoupil, Marin Bellan who belonged to the Société des Bâtiments du Roi or Gilles-Marie Oppenordt (figs. 1, 2 and 3). We find in the projects drawn or materially realized of these figures many characteristics common to ours, both in form and in ornamental vocabulary.