A fine pair of Louis XVI painted and carved giltwood pedestals, each surmounted by a tapering rectangular entablature with a carved and gilded acanthus frieze above a stepped banded base, supported upon a curved and scrolled fluted shaft centred at the upper front with a berried corn-husk drop that is flanked by a pair of beaded bands that continue down to the base. The sides with gilt painted scrolls that terminate in acanthus and foliate motifs, the centre of the scrolls issuing a swag that emulates twisted material that drapes around the front of each shaft, just above the base of the corn-husks drops. Each with a stepped base of rectangular form enclosing a conformingly shaped recessed beaded panel, mounted on the two sides by a recessed square panel centred by a quatrefoil floral mount 

Paris, date circa 1770-80

Height 86 cm, width 28 cm, depth 17 cm, each.

Literature: F. J. B. Watson, “Louis XVI Furniture”, p. 150, no. 224, describing and illustrating one of a pair of comparable carved and partially painted fluted Louis XVI pedestals, hung with a fruiting swag, once in the Doucet collection. 

With their elegant and restrained lines, these fine painted and carved giltwood pedestals, known as gaines in France, epitomise the Neo-classical style that dominated art and design during Louis XVI’s reign. Emphasis is placed upon clean crisp lines within a well-proportioned scrolling shaft that supports a tapering top and is terminated by an outward stepped rectangular base. Here we see many of the decorative forms and motifs that were inspired by ancient Roman and Greek architecture to include scrolling volutes, an acanthus-wrapped entablature, beaded angular panels and hanging corn-husk drops, that are perfectly offset by delicate swags that emulate twisted material. 

Such pedestals may well have been used to support a decorative object such as a vase, a candelabrum, a perfume jar or to display a portrait bust or other piece of sculpture. Whilst many pedestals of the period were carved on all four sides and thus could also be free-standing, these examples would have been placed in a salon or entrance hall against the wall, as were the pair from the Doucet collection, cited above by F.J.B. Watson, who notes that the latter appear to have been in the Randon de Boisset sale of 1777, when they were supporting a pair of decorative vases by the sculptor de la Rue which remained en suite with them when later in the Doucet collection.