REGENCY PERIOD CONSOLE TABLE In the taste of Nicolas Pineau Carved and redecorated wood, Flanders marble top, the belt with openwork decoration of scales and oves, decorated in the centre with a female mask, the console jambs decorated with embracing dragons in the lower part and surmounted by busts of winged satyrs, joined by a strut decorated in the centre with a shell among foliate scrolls, label printed on the reverse of the marble top inscribed "J.P. CHAPELLE - P. PERRIN -D. FROMANTIN / Commissaires-Priseurs Associés / 3, IMPASSE DES CHEVAU-LÉGERS / 78000 VERSAILLES / TÉL : 950-75-04 ET 69-82 / 198 " ; small accidents and missing gilding. H.80 cm (31 ½ in.) l.114.5 cm (45 in.) P.54 cm (21 ¼ in.) Provenance: By family tradition, former collection of Château de Louppy ; French aristocratic collection. A Regence giltwood console, in the taste of Nicolas Pineau This extraordinary console table, characterised by an extreme richness of carved motifs, combining trophies, chimeras, lions, foliage and cartouches in the most accomplished stylistic vocabulary of the Regency period, takes us back to the ornamental repertoire known to the famous Parisian ornamentalist Nicolas Pineau (1684-1754). An architect and sculptor, Nicolas Pineau displayed remarkable expertise in the art of ornamentation in the first half of the 18th century, making a major contribution to defining the lines of the rocaille style that emerged in France during the Regency period (1715-1723). In the collection Nouveaux desseins de pieds de tables et de vases et consoles de sculpture en bois, inventés par le sieur Pineau sculpteur, we find a large number of engravings that bear similarities to the general composition of our console. The sides of the uprights of our piece are decorated with an interlacing motif (see Fig. 1); above four acanthus leaf scrolled feet, the uprights are linked by a brace above which is a large rocaille cartouche (see Fig. 2) with openwork decoration. In addition, the central cartouche on the belt of our console features a mascaron motif, well known in the work of Nicolas Pineau (see Fig. 3). In various places, the jambs are carved to reveal winged chimeras carved in the round with great vivacity, whose snake-like bodies wind around the jambs. The models for the chimeras, winged dragons and satyrs are identical in the collections of models for console tables by Nicolas Pineau (see Figs. 4-5-6).