Vintage Italian Carved Beech & Gold Leaf Side Table With Onyx Top

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An Italian side table in the Louis XVI taste, with a shaped and polished [onyx] top over a hand-carved beechwood … Read more An Italian side table in the Louis XVI taste, with a shaped and polished [onyx] top over a hand-carved beechwood base finished in natural tone with water-gilded accents.
The gilding is genuine gold leaf over gesso — visible fine craquelure across the capitals and soft loss on the high points, exactly as leaf ages. Carving is by hand: the acanthus at each foot varies subtly leaf to leaf. Circular tapered legs terminate in lotus-carved gilt sabots, with gilded rosettes set into each corner block above.
The underside of the apron retains the original workshop notation in grease pencil — “SNC” for the Italian partnership that made it, and “oro,” the gold-finish instruction. A small piece of documentation that almost never survives.
Stone top is polished on the face and left rough on the reverse, as original. See less