Pier table and mirror

A pier table with a shaped, undulating marble top, a rim pierced with arches, and a festoon of flowers. Four curved legs, decorated with acanthus leaves ending in a scroll, and with an urn at the intersection of the crossbars.
A mirror with an oval frame, profusely decorated with shells and festoons of flowers bound with pierced and gilded carved bows, surmounted by an urn with a bouquet of flowers in the shape of a fan palm.

Besides this pair, the Palace of Queluz has other high-quality examples of pier tables and mirrors, attesting to the artistic and professional skills of Portuguese cabinet-makers, who unfortunately were not in the habit of marking the works that they produced, so that only on rare occasions is it possible to identify who made them. This pier table and mirror is an interesting example of the assimilation and adaptation of the Chippendale decorative style, as well as of a somewhat timid introduction of some rare features of the new neoclassical taste, which defined the so-called period of transition between the King José and Queen Maria styles, marked above all by a great lightness in terms of decoration.

The pier table and mirror, a piece of furniture that was of French origin and was used to decorate state rooms, filling the spaces between doors and windows, must only have become widespread in Portugal in the mid-18th century, roughly 50 years later than in France. In fact, we find the first reference to this type of furniture in the Palace only in 1762, although it continued to remain highly popular at the Court until the end of the 18th century.