CONSOLES
At first thought it would appear both ambitious and somewhat
futile--this hobby of collecting consoles. But that depends on how you
consider collecting in general; on whether you realize that you may make
a collection of purely practical objects or of curios with uncertain
decorative value. For both of these are prized by the collector. Thus,
one might not be inclined to consider house furnishings as collections
at all. But when some order enters into their selection and arrangement,
they virtually become collections, just as, on the other hand, an
aggregation of medals, a cabinet of jade, or a chest of Georgian silver
can be made to play a decorative rôle in the house when well placed. It
would, of course, be absurd to expect a cottage to provide the proper
setting for Louis XIV consoles, but just how lovely some of the Adam
console tables appear in the home of moderate aspects can well be
understood.
The use of the term console in this connection has been a matter of
some dispute. It is reasonable to suppose that it was borrowed, because
of the bracket supports--as distinguished from tables with four
legs--from the French architectural term _console_, a bracket support.
Since the idea came from the French, we must expect to find some of the
earliest and most beautiful consoles in French period furniture. Some of
the most notable ones are to be found in the great museums of America.
Fortunate it is that these are available for public study; for many
modern furniture-makers have been able to reproduce with fidelity the
designs of these wonderful consoles. Collectors, of course, do not
primarily seek reproductions, but many of the foremost among them
realize that where originals are not obtainable, unusually fine
reproductions are to be welcomed. The desirability lies not only in age
but in intrinsic beauty. I for one believe that much pleasure can be had
from the possession of fine reproductions of certain things, consoles
among them.
Genuine antiques are the things we naturally strive for first of all,
and consoles present a field that is, as yet, by no means prohibitive,
even for the moderately filled purse. To be sure, the rare French
consoles of the early Louis periods are not to be had at every turn (the
war has rendered them still rarer), but there are English consoles and
console tables and others by early American furniture-makers that are
surely worth hunting out. Their appropriateness to the scheme of the
small house commends their preservation and insures a revival of
interest in their modern use.
Virtually all of the eighteenth-century furniture-makers constructed
console tables. Gilded furniture in all its gorgeousness found favor in
England shortly before 1720, and the consoles and console tables were
unusually well adapted to finish and decoration of the sort that
suggested the magnificence of Louis XIV and, later on, the elegance and
richness of Louis XV. During the Empire period some were elaborately
decorated in white and gold. With the advent of the Napoleonic era, the
console and the console table still held sway. Indeed, I do not think
they have ever lost favor, and the last few years have seen a remarkable
increase of interest in both furniture forms on the part of decorators
and collectors of fine old furniture. Moreover, the console has not only
interested but influenced many of our present-day architects.
The console and the console table are by no means confined to the
furniture-makers of France, Great Britain, and America. We find both
forms in early eighteenth-century Italian furniture, and in Spain,
Austria, Germany, and Russia one also comes across types of consoles
that, dependent as they nearly always are on French models, still
exhibit occasional variations in design that link them to the art
traditions of the land of their manufacture.
Formal apartments and the smaller reception rooms of the
eighteenth-century houses of more or less pretension came to feel the
need of what one furniture-lover aptly called “a table that was not a
table.” In fact, Sheraton insisted that “portables,” as he called
consoles, were indispensable in the drawing-room. Marble shelves the
width of small--and sometimes, indeed, of very large--tables were
supported by brackets along the wall, bringing the shelf to the height
of a table top. In earlier examples the bold florid and exaggerated
types in soft wood, carved and gilded, often carried decoration to
extremes. The consoles found place beneath great mirrors and,
occasionally, beneath large paintings, tapestries, and the like.
In early consoles there was great variety in their supporting brackets,
the motifs of ornament being taken from flowers, foliage, parts of the
human form, animal and bird forms, rococo vagaries, and so on. During
the Empire the eagle came to be popularly employed as a console support
by the French furniture-designers of the time. In the collection of the
Duke of Beaufort are a number of the finest examples of the eagle
consoles. There are also some fine examples in the state dining-room of
the White House. Before long the earliest forms of console supports gave
way to more extensive supports and finally these reached the floor, as
in those consoles which have the cabriole form of support.
Sideboards were unknown during the first part of the eighteenth century,
but when the console table was introduced into England, it rapidly
developed from the French idea of the luxurious console for ornament’s
sake into the generous console table for utility’s sake, which we soon
find in the English dining-rooms. It did not take long for this to
suggest the sideboard.
Reference has already been made to the interest in consoles on the part
of the architects of to-day. This brings to mind the fine console tables
of the brothers Adam--pieces which the collector will do well to acquire
whenever the opportunity presents itself--for Robert Adam was an
architect who designed furniture but was not himself a cabinet-maker,
though his influence on the classical taste in the furniture of the late
eighteenth century was
[Illustration: French Console, Louis XIV Period]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
French Console, Louis XV Period]
[Illustration: Sèvres White Bisque
Statuette of Voltaire]
[Illustration: Sèvres White Bisque
Bust of Franklin]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
A Pair of Sèvres Porcelain Covered Vases]
decided. Robert Adam made exhaustive researches in France and Italy and
reached as far as Spalato in Dalmatia, whither his interest in classic
design took him.
In finding a place for the console in the modern house, it is well to
remember its original use. Under a long mirror in the drawing-room was
where it was generally placed, the tables being used in pairs to effect
a studied balance. It can be advantageously placed in the hallway, where
its dignity will add to the character of the entrance and at the same
time take up but little room. In dining-rooms consoles are arranged to
serve as sideboards. The type of console will naturally determine the
type of mirror or decoration suitable to hang above it, all of which the
furniture-collector should bear in mind.