Side table (commode en console) ca. 1755–60 Bernard II van Risenburgh This table with graceful, curvilinear lines has cabriole legs and is fitted with one drawer in its frieze. Its French name, commode en console, indicates that it is, in fact, a combination of a console table, designed to stand against a wall, and a commode, or chest of drawers.[1] A small number of such tables are known today, and they appear to have been in vogue for a short period during the middle of the eighteenth century.[2] Five were sold by the fashionable marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux (ca. 1703–1758) between Decembe

Side table (commode en console) ca. 1755–60 Bernard II van Risenburgh This table with graceful, curvilinear lines has cabriole legs and is fitted with one drawer in its frieze. Its French name, commode en console, indicates that it is, in fact, a combination of a console table, designed to stand against a wall, and a commode, or chest of drawers.[1] A small number of such tables are known today, and they appear to have been in vogue for a short period during the middle of the eighteenth century.[2] Five were sold by the fashionable marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux (ca. 1703–1758) between December of 1753 and February of 1757.[3] They were veneered with tulipwood with the exception of one table, by far the most expensive of all, which was mounted with lacquer. In Duvaux's shop records it was described as a lacquer commode, with console legs, decorated with gilded bronze. It was sold for 1,150 livres on 13 May 1756.[4]Considered as part of the wall decoration, most console tables were made of carved and gilded wood and were assembled by those joiners, known as menuisiers, who specialized in architectural woodwork. This side table, however, with its black-lacquered surface and Japanese lacquer veneer, was the work of an ébéniste. In 1743 it had become mandatory for all members of the furniture-makers' guild to mark their work with their name.[5] The carcase of this table is stamped twice with the initials "," identifying its maker as Bernard van Risenburgh II. This talented and prolific artist, the son of the cabinetmaker Bernard I (ca. 1660–1738) and the father of Bernard III (ca. 1731–1800), who succeeded him, was known for his luxurious furniture mounted with end-cut wood, lacquer, or porcelain (see entry for no. 51).[6] He worked almost exclusively for marchands-merciers, dealers like Duvaux who specialized in goods for the high end of the market. The stamp "JME," the monogram of the Jurande des Menuisiers-Ébénistes, a committee in charge of maint

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