FRANCE - RÉGION DIJONNAISE SECONDE RENAISSANCE,... Lot n° 8

TABLE OF APPARATUS "EN ÉVENTAIL" DE L'ÉCOLE D'HUGUES SAMBIN Walnut wood H. 94 cm, L. 202 cm, P. 99 cm Excellent state of preservation Bibliography Jacques Thirion, Le mobilier du Moyen-âge et de la Renaissance en France, Dijon, 1998 pages 126 to 137 The French table metamorphosed during the Renaissance. Inspired by Italy in its form and decoration, it was born in the crucible of the Fontainebleau School, where architects and ornamentalists such as Jacques Androuet du Cerceau and Hugues Sambin. Both a ceremonial table and a piece of sculpture, it marks one of the summits of the art of furniture in France, (J.Thirion). High and powerful, this exceptional table consists of a frame made up of two legs with runners. This table retains the flying top and mobile supports of the dismountable models of the Middle Ages and acquires the decorative function of Renaissance furniture, of which the most inventive and richest type is the fan-shaped table. Its trestles are mounted on supports crossing two runners, all in the form of volutes sculpted or incised with penne motifs. The branches of the cross thus drawn are not equal. The volute turned towards the centre of the table, which is longer, announces the arched crosspieces of the fixed tables. The fan is in the form of a powerful volute of foliage leaning against the mane in the form of the highly expressive, stepped loops of a lion's head, ending at the bottom with a lion's paw. The central pilaster houses a term with a sheath decorated with a foliage motif, with a laurelled female face on one leg and a masculine face on the other. In high relief, sculpted with great meticulousness, it brings a note of extreme refinement. Extremely rare, the motifs are repeated, in lower relief, but with the same quality, on the inside of the fan. The richness of the ornamentation and the quality of the sculpture suggest an origin in the workshops of Hugues Sambin at