A gilt-bronze, turquoise and white ground Sèvres style porcelain mounted ebonised guéridon, Paris, late 19th century

C. Payne, European furniture of the 19^th century, Antique Collector's club, Woodbridge, 2013, pp. 220-221 for illustration of similar models

This table is typical of 19^thcentury production in its use of an engraved gilt-bronze mount around the edge of the table to hold individual oval portraits of figures of Louis XVI’s court. His coat of arms is visible in one portrait medallion and the central porcelain bowl depicts a sun motif in the center of a group of dancing putti.  Reframing the Louis XVI style in a 19^th century style table appropriates what 19^th century France saw as the important values of the reign of Louis XVI, namely Sèvres. Louis XVI commissioned Sèvres to create many important pieces, and thus became synonymous with French luxury goods. Interestingly, Sèvres’s production throughout the 19^thcentury was marked by eclecticism itself; therefore, a Sèvres style Louis XVI revival was an attempt to standardize and essentailize the production of a manufacturing company that was extremely diverse and wide-ranging in its offerings.

Tables of this kind were exhibited throughout the world exhibitions and show again a tendency to concretize French history by combining its political and design histories into a single narrative of progression and luxury.