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A highly unusual George IV ebonized and gilt-brass mounted center table with silver-framed specimen hardstone and marble insets. Ebonized with gilt-brass mounts, silver, brass inlay, and inset with specimen hardstones and marbles including various jaspers, agates, marble breccias, moss agate, paesina, serpentinite, portor, lapis lazuli, Spanish brocatello and others. Each stone inset with a silver edge and bearing to the underside a paper label inscribed with its Latin name. The rectangular top edged with a gilt-brass tongue-and-flower molding, the top centered by a marble-inlaid cartouche surmounted by a crown and centered with a silver shield, the cartouche surrounded by a design of various shaped hardstones. The shaped apron to the four sides similarly decorated with inset hardstones, the apron edged below with a stylized foliate gilt-brass molding issuing lapping acanthus leaves, the whole raised on four cabriole legs with silver-line inlay to the edges, each leg decorated to the knee with inset hardstones and decorated to all four sides with a brass-inlaid scrolling foliate design, each leg terminating in a later gilt-brass paw foot.

This distinctive and highly unusual table houses a remarkable collection of semiprecious hardstones and marbles, and bears the mantle and coronet of either a Prince of Russia or a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire.

Ebonized with gilt-brass mounts, silver, brass inlay, and inset with specimen hardstones and marbles including various jaspers, agates, marble breccias, moss agate, paesina, serpentinite, portor, lapis lazuli, Spanish brocatello and others. Each stone inset with a silver edge and bearing to the underside a paper label inscribed with its Latin name. The rectangular top edged with a gilt-brass tongue-and-flower molding, the top centered by a marble-inlaid cartouche surmounted by a crown and centered with a silver shield, the cartouche surrounded by a design of various shaped hardstones. The shaped apron to the four sides similarly decorated with inset hardstones, the apron edged below with a stylized foliate gilt-brass molding issuing lapping acanthus leaves, the whole raised on four cabriole legs with silver-line inlay to the edges, each leg decorated to the knee with inset hardstones and decorated to all four sides with a brass-inlaid scrolling foliate design, each leg terminating in a later gilt-brass paw foot.

This distinctive and highly unusual table houses a remarkable collection of semiprecious hardstones and marbles, and bears the mantle and coronet of either a Prince of Russia or a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire.

Interestingly, each stone sample is inscribed on the reverse with its Latin name, indicating they constituted a geological collection. Tabletops inlaid with mineral collections brought back from the Grand Tour in Italy were highly desired in fashionable circles during this period. However, the majority use only marble specimens inlaid in concentric rings on a circular top for decorative effect, as can be seen on a table in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.1 The great variety of stones and the inventive arrangement seen on the present table displays a considered and artistic approach in its composition, and appears to be unique. The setting of the stones on an ebony ground within silver frames emphasizes the subtle luminosity of their colors.

The inlaid armorial which centers the table, composed of a red or purple mantle, tasseled and draped and surmounted by a princely coronet, forms part of the arms of a number of royal European lines, and signifies either a Prince of Russia or a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire. It is interesting to note that a pair of armorials surmounted by a mantle and coronet similar to that on the present table can be seen on a music cabinet from Schwarzenau Castle in Austria, one of the two being centered by a monogram rather than a coat-of-arms.2 The fact that the silver shield centering the present armorial remains empty suggests that it either was intended to carry a monogram which was never engraved, or was perhaps deleted by a subsequent owner of the table.

English. Circa 1825