Ormolu and porcelain mounted ebonised wood dressing table

This beautiful dressing table is crafted from porcelain and ormolu (gilt bronze) mounted ebonised wood. The table stands on four fluted and tapered ebonised wood columnar-form legs. The legs, their flutes partially inset with ormolu foliate mounts, culminate in ormolu waisted capitals, and terminate in ormolu sabots, the sabots connected by a highly ornate ormolu H-form stretcher.

The legs support the table itself, which is richly adorned with painted porcelain plaques and intricately cast ormolu mounts. The rectangular ebonised wood tabletop, edged with a gilt bronze mount, is inset with a large rectangular parcel gilt and painted porcelain plaque. This plaque is painted in a Rococo style with central oval panel depicting a female figure seated in a landscape surrounded by three winged cherubim. The remainder of the rectangular plaque is adorned with an interlaced parcel gilt pattern of squares, each square delicately painted with a flower. The table’s apron is similarly decorated, the front inset with a large drawer.

The tabletop is mounted with a hinged mirror, the mirror supported by twin ebonised wood columns decorated in the same manner as the table’s four legs and surmounted by ormolu pinecone finials. These twin columns support and oval mirror, richly adorned with ormolu and painted porcelain plaques. The mirror is surmounted by an ovoid crown, the crown inset with a painted porcelain plaque and draped with ormolu ribbon-tied floral garlands.

The painted plaques are signed: the large plaque inset into the tabletop is signed ‘G. Amaury’, while the remainder of the painted plaques—inset into the drawer and encompassing the mirror—are signed ‘G. A.’