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Accession #	1994.153
Maker	Allen & Brother
Title	Center Table
Date	ca. 1875
Medium	Cherry, marble
Dimensions	31 5/8 x 44 3/4 x 29 1/4 in. (80.3 x 113.7 x 74.3 cm)
Credit Line	Marie Bernice Bitzer Fund
Location	Visible Storage: Case 25
Description	Center Table, cherry with opaque white finish and overall gilt incised decoration, with variegated gray, beige, pink marble top with extended bracket corners and brackets at mid-points on four sides. Round legs raised on elaborate square section with carved gilt rosettes and stylized leaves and square sections above with inverted elongated gilt triangular motifs. Side stretchers with down turned terminals and centered palmettes topped with five gilt spheres. Center stretcher with similar, larger centered palmette raised on low triangular form with dense gilt reeding. Arched apron with six spheres to underside on each half of long sides and large drop finials at corners of top with inverted pyramidal form support on long side horizontal pole with eleven attached gilt rings with circular terminals with eight gilt spheres and centered flattened finial. Condition: Very good. White finish largely intact, but dirty. Losses to gold and some repainting of gold has oxidized a darker orange/gold.

Curatorial Remarks: The attribution of this unusual table is based on similarities of detail, particularly the curtain-rod-like element below the top, which also appears on a cabinet the firm displayed at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876. The style of the table is termed Neo-Grec and refers to a new interest in classicism that emerged during the Second Empire in the 1860s in France and during the 1870s in the United States. The table\'s white, or ivory, finish, a rare surviving example, is also French-inspired and looks back to examples from both the ancien régime of the eighteenth century and the Empire style popular under Napoleon I in the early nineteenth century.