Pair of console tables

Pair of console tables with curved ends; of oak veneered in ebony with red marble top, supported on four painted polychrome metal Chinese male terms; applied with gilt bronze pierced mounts, the frieze with paired dragons flanking a cobweb; mirror back, three circular shelves below.

This pair of elaborately mounted tables and their companion pair without Chinese figures (RCIN 13.1-2), designed for the display of ornaments, formed part of the highly fashionable decoration of the new Chinese Room at Carlton House, and were probably supplied by the Parisian dealer-decorator Dominique Daguerre, working to the direction of the Prince’s architect Henry Holland. The supports incorporating chinamen mirror the decoration of the chimneypiece from the same room. Of each pair, one table is original, while the second is a copy made in 1819 by Edward Bailey. The two original tables were moved from the Chinese Drawing Room to the Bow Room, Principal Floor, in 1811, and after the copies had been made, all four tables were installed in 1819 in the Music Room Gallery, Brighton Pavilion.