Console on Sphinx Legs with a Mosaic Top "Sea-Bed"

1809

Paris, France

Workshop of Jacob-Desmalter

Mosaic

1766

Florence, Italy

This unique piece of furniture consists of two parts from different dates: the Sea-Bed table-top created in Florence in 1766 from a drawing by G. Zocci and the console base made of mahogany with bronze feet in the form of the sphinx. The top bearing a depiction in Florentine mosaic technique on a lapis lazuli background of all manner of sea creatures, shells of different shapes and corals linked by a chain of beads was united with the base in 1809 in the workshop of the celebrated French furniture-maker Jacob-Desmalter. The table adorned the salon in Josephine's favourite residence at Malmaison. After the Empress's death the piece was inherited by her son Eugène Beauharnais and stood in one of the rooms of his palace in Munich. It reached Russia following the marriage of Eugène's son Maximilian to a daughter of Nicholas I.