Louis XIV ormolu-mounted Boulle side tables

  • Louis XIV ormolu mounted Boulle side tables
  • Boulle Table
  • Boulle Table
Category
King James
Tags
Furniture

A pair of Louis XIV ormolu-mounted Boulle side tables by André-Charles Boulle (d.1732).

 

The tables are decorated in marquetry: the art of inlaying furniture with small pieces of different materials to create intricate pictures. André-Charles Boulle was the most skilled craftsman in the technique, particularly his designs in tortoiseshell and pewter or brass.
One of these tables is in première-partie (brass inlay on tortoiseshell) and the other is in contre-partie (tortoiseshell inlay on brass). Their design follows the drawing ascribed to André-Charles Boulle now in the Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris.

 

These tables are recorded in the Grimsthorpe inventory of 1813 in the Ante Drawing Room. ‘An ouvrage de Buhl Pier Table, inlaid with Brass and mounted with Ormolu. A Do. do..en suit’.