A Louis XVI Gilt Bronze Mounted Mahogany Console Desserte Attributed to Bernard Molitor

ATTRIBUTED TO BERNARD MOLITOR (1755-1833), LATE 18TH CENTURY

having a later marble top over a frieze drawer and a conforming undertier with fluted tapering supports and a mirrored back, raised on toupie feet.

Height 33 1/2 x width 61 5/16 x depth 22 inches.

Property from the Toledo Museum of Art, sold for the benefit of the Art Acquisition Fund Provenance: Probably Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild (1812-1870) to his nephew Baron Alphonse de Rothschild to his wife, Baroness Clarice de Rothschild Rosenberg & Stiebel, New York, NY, 1967 This console is attributed to Bernard Molitor based on an assessment by Theodore Dell, an "art advisor and historian noted for his expertise in eighteenth-century French furniture, porcelain and decorative arts." It was first attributed to Adam Weisweiler when it was in the possession of Rosenberg & Stiebel, from whom the museum purchased it using funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Trust in memory of her father, Maurice A. Scott. A memorandum to the documentary file from 1967, shortly after the console was acquired, suggests that the registrar, Mrs. Bentley, believed it could be attributed to Jean-Henri Riesener. She compared the console to a Riesener model up for auction and noted that "while the character and basic design differ, much of the decorative vocabulary resembles our piece." This attribution does not appear to have been pursued further. Rosenberg & Stiebel purchased the console from the estate of Baroness Clarice de Rothschild in 1967. It is believed to have been restituted to the Baroness sometime after 1949, following its confiscation from her husband, Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, when the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938. An inventory of the Rothschild collection taken in 1938 describes the console as "Spiegeltisch mit eingezogenen Seiten und zwei rosacrème marmorplatten, Rankenbeschläge" (Mirror table with recessed sides and two pink and cream marble slabs, vine fittings). Alphonse de Rothschild is assumed to have inherited the console from his uncle, Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild. The console may be one of a pair, the other belonging to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession number 26.220.1).