Chinese games table, Canton (China), circa 1850.
Lacquered wood, silver and gold leaf.
Measurements: height 78 cm, length 83.5 cm, width 63.5 cm.
A very rare example of a chinoiserie table of Cantonese manufacture that belonged to King Vittorio Emanuele II of Savoy. The piece of furniture has shaped corners with typically English lines.
Of rectangular shape, it has a square compartment in the center with a double-sided lacquered lid: one side is decorated with checkerboard squares, both in silver and red, inside which Chinese figures are painted in gold; on the other side, the backgammon game.
The table is supported by a central leg that ends with three feet sculpted in the shape of dragon heads. The use of lacquer on a silver background by the artisans clarifies a commission from the Western royal courts, where silver-cast furnishings were very common. What indicates the destination of the table for King Vittorio Emanuele II of Savoy is the presence of his crowned monogram, framed with laurel, repeated in the four corners of the top. The decoration is distinguished in style from all the iconographic apparatus and from this it can be deduced that it was provided to the Canton artisans by the clients themselves, who may have been the King of Savoy in person or another European ruler, offered by him as a gift on the occasion of the accession to the throne of Sardinia of Vittorio Emanuele II in 1849.
