Console table

Richard de Lalonde

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Several console tables of this design, with a demi-lune-shaped top, a frieze carved with trailing foliage and pearls, resting on three pierced and scrolling supports which end in claw feet, are known. The form is derived from a design by the decorateur-dessinateur Richard de Lalonde (active 1780-90). Lalonde worked as part of the team of designers and architects in the Menus Plaisirs and subsequently the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne. These departments were responsible for the preparations of ceremonies, major events and festivities and for the order, upkeep, storage and repair of the furniture and art in the French Royal palaces. This console is part of the pieces of woodwork and furniture formerly in the possession of the French decorator and dealer, Georges Hoentschel, whose collection was acquired in 1906 by the financier J.P. Morgan, and which formed the founding gift to the MMA of the European Sculpture and Decorative Arts Department.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art