A Fulda giltwood console table
Gilt lime wood with Lahn marble top. Richly carved on three faces, resting on four serpentine supports connected by a curved X-form stretcher with a dog's head in the centre. The curved apron with corresponding rocaille relief decor surrounding an armorial cartouche with the bars of the Cistercian Order. A breakage to the lower edge of the rocaille on the right side. H 76.5, W 83, D 56 cm.
Attributed to Franz Adam Weber, around 1758.
Princely Splendour
We know of a total of four console tables with the same design: In addition to the one presented here, there is a pair in the Mirror Cabinet of today's Fulda City Palace, still in situ, and another console in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
This console table is not only richly carved, but also has stamped and incised decor. Unlike the pair in Fulda and the one in New York, this table has an additional "tier" built into the frame, a special rocaille border just below the marble top that repeats the curved corner mouldings and makes the architecture appear more substantial. The head of a hunting dog is depicted on the crosspiece here; the Fulda pair show hoofed Chinoiseries, and the New York example a hippocamp. Different coats-of-arms or insignia are depicted in the central cartouche under the frame for each console - an indication that they were intended for different uses and owners.
Heinrich Kreisel names Wenzel Neu, Karl Mattern and Franz Adam Weber as the designers primarily responsible for the furnishings for the Prince-Bishop of Fulda, Adalbert II von Walderdorff (1697 - 1759). He took office in January 1757 and immediately arranged for his residence in Fulda to be decorated in accordance with contemporary taste. The short two years of his reign give us a small window of time in which this piece could have been created. All four tables are attributed to Franz Adam Weber, a cabinetmaker about whom we know little, except that he developed his own unique style. Apart from the whimsical animal models, the large, flame-like serrated rocailles are also a kind of trademark, along with his unique interpretation of the English claw-and-ball-feet with three short, feathered bird claws clutching a tiny ball.
Provenance
Jean-René Bory (1928 - 2009).
Collection de la Fondation des Suisses / Collection of the Foundation for the History of the Swiss.
European private ownership.
Literature
Cf. Kreisel, Die Kunst des deutschen Möbels, vol. 2, Munich 1970, p. 217, fig. 634 ff.
Cf. the console table in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. no. 2006.114a, b, acquired Friends of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts Gifts and John B. Ritter Gift, 2006), also with later marble top.
Exhibitions
Château de Penthes, Switzerland, from 1978 museum, research and documentation centre of the Foundation for the History of the Swiss throughout the World.