Center Table
Decorative Arts and Design
On View: Luce Visible Storage and Study Center, 5th Floor
The attribution of this unusual table is based on similarities of detail, particularly the curtain-rod-like element below the top, which also appears on a cabinet the firm displayed at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876. The style of the table is termed Neo-Grec and refers to a new interest in classicism that emerged during the Second Empire in the 1860s in France and during the 1870s in the United States. The table's white, or ivory, finish, a rare surviving example, is also French-inspired and looks back to examples from both the ancien régime of the eighteenth century and the Empire style popular under Napoleon I in the early nineteenth century.
MEDIUM
Cherry, marble
DATES
ca. 1875
DIMENSIONS
31 5/8 x 44 3/4 x 29 1/4 in. (80.3 x 113.7 x 74.3 cm)
(show scale)
ACCESSION NUMBER
1994.153
CREDIT LINE
Marie Bernice Bitzer Fund
CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION
Center Table, cherry with opaque white finish and overall gilt incised decoration, with variegated gray, beige, pink marble top with extended bracket corners and brackets at mid-points on four sides. Round legs raised on elaborate square section with carved gilt rosettes and stylized leaves and square sections above with inverted elongated gilt triangular motifs. Side stretchers with down turned terminals and centered palmettes topped with five gilt spheres. Center stretcher with similar, larger centered palmette raised on low triangular form with dense gilt reeding. Arched apron with six spheres to underside on each half of long sides and large drop finials at corners of top with inverted pyramidal form support on long side horizontal pole with eleven attached gilt rings with circular terminals with eight gilt spheres and centered flattened finial.
Condition: Very good. White finish largely intact, but dirty. Losses to gold and some repainting of gold has oxidized a darker orange/gold.
CAPTION
Allen & Brother (1847–1902). Center Table, ca. 1875. Cherry, marble, 31 5/8 x 44 3/4 x 29 1/4 in. (80.3 x 113.7 x 74.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Marie Bernice Bitzer Fund, 1994.153. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 1994.153_transp565.jpg)
IMAGE
overall, 1994.153_transp565.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT
Creative Commons-BY
You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a
Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply.
Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online
application form (charges apply).
For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the
United States Library of Congress,
Cornell University,
Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and
Copyright Watch.
For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our
blog posts on copyright.
If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact
copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and
we welcome any additional information you might have.