Gueridon
This gueridon table rests on a hexagonal base enhanced by a slightly raised mahogany plinth. The plinth displays a polychrome marble marquetry in a neo-classical manner, centred by a star within a verde antico marble circle on a yellow Sienna marble background. Verde antico and Sienna marble brackets bring rhythm to the periphery of this tray with canted corners, alternating with curtain loop motives derived from a rather popular trimming repertoire. This design is contrasting with a rosy-pink marble background.
The gueridon table stands on six fluted patinated bronze feet crowned with palm-shaped capitals and terminating in chased ormolu lion-paw sabots. They are joined horizontally in their lower and top part by ormolu mate linear bands joined by patinated bronze X-formed stretchers. A red porphyry circular top supported by this structure is inset within an ormolu band simply underlined with borders.
Our gueridon table was formerly in the famous collection of Salomon Grumbach (Hattstatt, Haut-Rhin, 1884-1952), great collector and vice-president of the committee of the Foreign Affairs in France from 1936 to 1940 (see M. Prevost, Roman d’Amat and H. Tribout de Morembert, Dictionnaire de biographie française, vol. 16, Paris, 1985, p. 1378).
This gueridon table is the metal version of a narrower gueridon (19 in.) from the same period standing on wooden ormolu feet with a design rigorously identical to ours. It is now in the collections of the musée des Arts décoratifsin Paris (see picture to the next page: illustrated in the book by Marie-Noëlle de Grandry, Le mobilier français. Directoire / Consulat / Empire, Paris, 1996, p. 66, ill. ; see also Guillaume Janneau, Le meuble léger en France, Paris, 1952, pl. 275, ill.).
