TABLE FOR SPANISH WRITTING DESK (BARGUEÑO) WITH “SAINT ANTHONY” LEGS. WOOD AND “PALOSANTO”, WROUGHT IRON FASTENERS. SPAIN, 18TH CENTURY.

Bargueñera table with “San Antonio” leg. Wood and rosewood, wrought iron fasteners. Spain, 18th century. Rectangular table top decorated with simplified geometric motifs combining wood of different colors in a symmetrical arrangement. Two straight legs, open downwards and joined with a shell, have been secured by two curved fasteners with a disc in the center made of light-colored forged metal. Although the curves of the pawls and discs may recall examples from the Baroque, the simple geometric decoration of the upper board, the absence of movement and the straight lines of the legs, of the typology known as “San Antonio” (which also found in examples from the 17th century), they make us think of the 18th century, already under the influence of Neoclassicism. Compare, for example, with the magnificent example of a dining table from the Royal Workshops dated to the second third of this century and preserved in National Heritage. The usual thing is that this type of tables, made to hold desks, either Spanish or Italian, would have their tops smooth and without marquetry of any kind because with the furniture they would barely be seen and only the two iron fasteners would be left on the front. that this example has or, also, that they dressed in rich fabrics to highlight the trash cans, leaving little more than the legs visible. They were works made for upper-class homes just like those desks, so only prominent private collections and important museums preserve similar examples: one in the Sorolla (inventory 30023) in Madrid has a tabletop with pyrography-engraved white resin plates with mythological scenes, another from the 17th century in the National Museum of Decorative Arts (CE02068) with geometric motifs in marquetry, or another very similar to the one present in the Regional Museum of Daroca (00038) but of contemporary date, made inspired by buffets like the present one.

· Size: 176x70x79 cms.