Console
1781 - 1784.Not on display
The tabletop, which bears its date of completion, is decorated with trompe l’oeil decorations organized like a messy table. A painting with two Oriental figures is surrounded by various books, a ruler, a box, a cane, various papers and a drawing, two pistols and a powder container, a belt and a dagger. The bronze foot was made by Giovanni Battista Ferroni after Neapolitan consoles from the first half of the century—those with espagnolettes at the knee—according to a design by Basilio Fumo. It consists of four legs ending in lion’s claws. At the top, they have busts of winged and bare-breasted 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. Charles III’s initials appear on its skirting’s central cartouche (Text from González-Palacios, A.: Las colecciones reales españolas de mosaicos y piedras duras, 2001, pp. 170-174).
