This table is one of the few pieces of Giovanni Piranesi's furniture to survive. Piranesi, a printmaker, archaeologist, architect, and designer, greatly contributed to Europe's renewed interest in the ancient world through his numerous etchings of Roman ruins. In 1769, he published Diverse Manners of Ornamenting Chimneys and All Other Parts of Houses, a collection of imaginative designs for clocks, vases, chimneypieces, and even coaches.
This table, illustrated in the book, was one of two made for the Roman state apartments of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Rezzonico, nephew of Pope Clement XIII. Its companion is in Amsterdam at the Rijksmuseum. For the pair, Piranesi used several ancient designs. He modeled the legs, carved like winged chimeras (part-lion, part-goat mythological monsters), after bronze tripods that were found at Pompeii and Herculaneum. He based the ox skulls on Roman funerary motifs, and the palmettes, also on the frieze, on Greek decorations.
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