Console
1774 - 1783. Gilt-bronze, Lapis lazuli, Paragone. Not on displayThis table has the image of a painting of a seascape and its frame, back to front, as well as playing cards, various chips, a ruler, a hammer, a compass and other carpentry tools, two buckles, a key ring and various drawings over a touchstone or black Belgian marble background. The representation of the images is directly based on famous compositions by French painter Joseph Vernet (1714-1789), whose work was much appreciated by Charles III and Charles IV. Motives related to games involving cards or chessboards are based on contemporaneous French models by V. Penot.
The bronze legs consist of four feet ending in lion’s claws. At the top, they have busts of bare-breasted winged women. A rich central cartouche has a face and the initials CT beneath a crown on a lapis-lazuli background. The same stone appears in the girdle. It has been suggested that the bronze feet may have been made by Juan Bautista Ferroni between 1774 and 1779 and modeled after Neapolitan tables from the first half of the century—those with espagnolettes at the knee. Documents indicate that the tabletop was completed in 1778 and the entire table in 1782.
This table and its pair (O00474) are mentioned in 1794 in Charles III’s will (the table bears that monarch’s initials on its skirting’s central cartouche). Years later, the palace inventory of 1822 listed it in the Chamber Room of the King’s Quarters. On May 12, 1827, Ferdinand VII sent these two tables to the Real Museo del Prado (Text from González-Palacios, A.: Las colecciones reales españolas de mosaicos y piedras duras, 2001, pp. 170-174).