TABLE with SPHINGS of the CHATEAU of CHENONCEAU... Lot 23

TABLE with SPHINGS of the CHATEAU of CHENONCEAU in carved walnut wood resting on four winged feminine figures ending in lion claws, joined by a spacer with a fan-shaped arcature. Four small circular runners. Rectangular shaped tray with slides. Antique quality work in the style of the Second Renaissance. High. : 88.2, Closed length : 149.2, Open length : 279.3, Depth : 87.4 cm. (insect bites and restoration). Provenance: - former collection of the Château de Chenonceau, where it was displayed in the large gallery spanning the Cher, as attested by an old postcard, - offered by the Menier family to Eugénie Mainguy (1902-1982), guide at the château until 1945 and daughter of the stewards; Senator Gaston Menier was her best man at her wedding in 1927, - by descent, Touraine. Italian grotesque table from the former collection of the Château de Chenonceau. Florentine work from the end of the 16th, beginning of the 17th century. While the medieval principle of the skate table persisted, Italy rediscovered the Roman cartibula. France, unless it was Flanders, invented the extension mechanism, as described by Bonnaffé: "The lower tabletop, separated in its width into two halves mounted on tilting slides, can be pulled out at will, each half adjusting to the ends of the upper tabletop, which folds down to the same level." This model with similar sphinxes was designed by Crispin de Passe (Arnemuiden, 1564 - Utrecht, 1637), as shown in a drawing kept at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, reproduced in Jacques Thirion, "Le mobilier du Moyen-Âge et de la Renaissance en France", Dijon, Faton, 1998, p. 128. Similar copies are kept in the museums of Dijon, Toulouse and the Louvre.