Beschreibung:

A Renaissance-style walnut extending table 'en Croix de Lorraine', incorporating a mixture of 16th and 19th century elements, French, the rectangular top with two draw leaves, above an apron punctuated with turned toupies, raised on seven Tuscan column supports and a stepped base, terminating in bun feet, bearing two painted accession numbers, 248cm long at full extension 77cm wide 80cm high Provenance: The Late John Scott Oldfield, 65 Warwick Square, London, SW1; purchased by the above from Gallori Turchi, Florence, 1996; Sotheby's New York, 'European Works of Art, Arms and Armour, Furniture and Tapestries', Wednesday 13 May 1995, lot 161; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, loaned 1906 and accessioned 1916 (inv. no. 16.32.44),; John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913); Georges Hoentschel (1855-1915). Literature: D. Kisluk-Grosheid, D Krohn, Deborah & U Leben ed., 'Salvaging the Past: Georges Hoentschel and French Decorative Arts from The Metropolitan Museum of Art', 2013, p.74, 152, figs.4.9, 5.5; J Boccador, 'Le Mobilier Français du Moyen Age a la Renaissance', 1988, p.227, figs.215-6. Tables of this sort take their title from the shape of the stretcher, which bears similarity to the French Cross of Lorraine, which was initially called the Cross of Anjou, but following the marriage in 1431 of Isabelle of Lorraine to Rene I of Naples, or Rene d’Anjou, developed its new name. Along with a great deal of French Renaissance furniture design, tables ’en Croix de Lorraine’, which are commonly linked with the Loire Valley, undoubtedly take their influence from Italian architecture and the ideas of its artists and craftsmen who travelled to France to work at the court of Francis I, and subsequently his daughter-in-law, Catherine de’ Medici. This is most clearly seen in the supports of many known examples which take the form of Tuscan columns. The present example was in the collection of Georges Hoentschel (1855-1915), the successful Parisian decorator and proprietor of Maison Leys. In 1906, the financier and president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, J Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) purchased a large number of objects from Hoentschel as a gift for the museum, including a collection of important 18th-century French decorative arts. Also loaned to the museum at the time, and eventually gifted on the death of J P Morgan by his son Jack, were pieces of medieval and Renaissance art, among which was this table. The Morgan Gift is credited for its pivotal role in establishing the Museum’s Department of Decorative Arts and we are extremely grateful to the Met for their assistance in the research and cataloguing of this lot. For similar examples, see: Christie's, 'The European Connoisseur', 4 June 2014, lot 588; Christie's, 'Au Bord Du Lac: An interior by François-Joseph-Graf', 26 January 2022, lot 41.