Bargueñera table with “San Antonio” leg. Wood and rosewood, wrought iron fasteners. Spain, 18th century. Table with a rectangular top decorated with simplified geometric motifs, combining woods of different colors in a symmetrical arrangement. Two straight legs, sloping downwards and joined with a stretcher, are secured by two curved braces with a disc in the center, made of light-colored forged metal. While the curves of the braces and discs may recall Baroque examples, the simple geometric decoration of the tabletop, the lack of movement, and the straight lines of the legs, of the type known as "San Antonio" (which is 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, dated to the second third of that century and preserved in the National Heritage collection. It was common for these types of tables, made to support writing desks, whether Spanish or Italian, to have plain tabletops without any marquetry, as the furniture would barely be visible, leaving only the two iron supports on the front, as seen in this example. Alternatively, they might be covered with rich fabrics to highlight the writing surfaces, leaving little more than the legs exposed. These were pieces made for upper-class homes, as were the writing desks themselves, which is why only prominent private collections and important museums preserve similar examples: one in the Sorolla Museum (inventory 30023) in Madrid has a tabletop with pyrographically decorated white resin plaques depicting mythological scenes; another from the 17th century in the National Museum of Decorative Arts (CE02068) features geometric marquetry motifs; and yet another, very similar to the one present here, is in the Daroca Regional Museum (00038) but of a more recent date, inspired by writing desks like this one.
· Size: 176x70x79 cms.
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