Bargueñera Table With “san Antonio” Leg. Spain, 18th Century.

Bargueñera table with “San Antonio” leg. Wood and rosewood, wrought iron fasteners. Spain, 18th century.
The rectangular tabletop is decorated with simplified geometric motifs combining woods of different colors in a symmetrical arrangement. Two straight legs, open at the bottom and joined by a post, were secured by two curved fasteners with, in the center, a light-colored wrought metal disc. While the curves of the fasteners and discs may recall examples of the Baroque period, the simple geometric decoration of the top board, the lack of movement, and the straight lines of the legs, of the so-called “San Antonio” typology (also found in 17th-century examples), suggest the 18th century, already under the influence of Neoclassicism. Compare, for example, with the magnificent example of a dining table from the Royal Workshops dating from the second third of that century and preserved in the National Heritage. Usually, this type of table, intended to support desks, Spanish or Italian, had smooth tops without any type of marquetry, because they were barely visible with the piece of furniture and only the two iron fasteners remained on the front. These were works made for high-class houses, just like these desks, so only exceptional private collections and important museums preserve similar examples: one of them, at the Sorolla (inventory 30023) in Madrid, has a board with pyrographed white resin plates with mythological scenes, another from the 17th century at the National Museum of Decorative Arts (CE02068) with geometric motifs in marquetry, or another very similar to the one present at the Regional Museum of Daroca (00038) but of contemporary date, made inspired by law firms like this one. -
Dimensions: 176x70x79 cm