The ancient Romans were supposedly logical, orderly, restrained. When European tastemakers around 1750 translated their ideas of ancient Rome into a design style they called Neoclassical—literally “new classical”—they focused on symmetry, balance, and straight geometric lines. But Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–78), a well-known Italian printmaker, envisioned the Roman world more like a party. Riffing on Neoclassical motifs, he bent the lines into curvaceous flamboyance, like the over-the-top Rococo style that had charmed Europe a few decades earlier. An artist should be able to blend inspiration from various times and places, he argued, which is exactly what he did with this top pier table, usually set against a wall and often beneath a mirror.
Piranesi was fascinated by Greek, Roman, and Egyptian motifs, which he incorporated into nearly all of his works. The table’s legs form chimeras, winged creatures that are part lion, part goat, and part serpent.
Piranesi had a thing for ox skulls, particularly the decorative, twirling horns, and argued that the ancients did, too. In Classical art, the skulls were often paired with wreaths to represent sacrificial oxen.
Critics attacked Piranesi for his apparent love of ornament over functionality, his Rococo pretensions. But Piranesi didn’t care for Rococo either. Not because of all the ornamentation—frills and fripperies were fine by him—but because of its often artless arrangement. He preferred more orderly ornament, geometrically and mathematically organized.
You wouldn’t eat at this table, or play cards, or much of anything really. You put stuff on it as a showcase, perhaps potpourri (a bowl with aromatic scents), a candlestick, a vase, a flashy box, or a precious bronze sculpture.
Even with an extra leg, the table struggled to support its original marble top. Also, the gilding was prone to flaking off; new gold leaf was applied three different times. Mia restored the table and added wall-mounted supports to prop it up.