Console Table (3/4 right, 11/97)

This is one of four identical, elaborately carved tables Charles VII had made for the Kaisersaal (king's room) in the monastery of Kloster Ettal, near Munich. All four of the tables survive in museums, one in Germany and three in the United States. The Getty Museum's table displays a portrait, possibly of Charles, in the central medallion and a shield with the Austrian coat of arms on the stretcher below.

Although this table was created in the 1740s when the exuberant Rococo style was fashionable, it exhibits only one Rococo feature: the asymmetrical grouping on the stretcher. The corner masks with their feather headdresses, tasseled lambrequins, curving shields, lion's paw feet, square section stretcher, and deep symmetrical frieze are all typical of the preceding Régence period. Underneath the tabletop, in the center of the stretcher, two putti play with unlikely toys, a trophy of military arms and armor.