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Roman Tile table
A Walnut X-Form Center Table with Inset Ancient Mosaic Fragment; Top from the Second Century A.D.; Base is Italian, circa 1820
Rinza: “It’s from a nymphaeum, a Roman bath, and it was designed to be seen through the water. Lusitania was the region in the Roman Empire (now Portugal) where the piece was taken from. We found a student who’s currently there digging; we’re still not sure what they are [pointing to the striped figures with two seemingly dangling legs] – either stylized water movement – ripples - and there’s another theory that they are jellyfish.” Hobbs added, “If you put water above it, you could get the sense of it, because the water would distort into what they’re meant to look like.” “We should do an installation and submerge it,” Rinza joked.
Travertine table
A gilt-brass mounted and inlaid center table with unusual parquet pattern gold travertine top by Louis Majorelle
Rinza: “This is highly unusual; it’s a piece of marble that pretends it’s wood. It’s just a really odd and curious thing to do. It’s gold travertine that’s put into this table as a parquet floor. It’s a very early use of travertine marble; it was only really Henry Moore who began to use it in decorative arts. It’s at the very cusp of art nouveau and art deco.”
The Marble mosaic table
A turned ebonized center table with a most unusual mosaic top in imitation of alabaster or marble
Rinza: “This one is something really astonishing. Here, you have a mosaic, but where you’d expect a fish or floral decoration, this is actually a representation of marble. Someone went, in the 17th century, and chopped pieces of marble in order to make the representation of a piece of marble.” Hobbs added, “It’s worthy of Damien Hirst in terms of originality.”
(in the Hobbs' collection)
(damaged top at the V&A)
The Silver tops
A very rare pair of late renaissance silver tabletops
Hobbs: “They’re extraordinary because they’re a pair and also for the fact that there’s one in the V&A in London. On it’s pair, a part got damaged and missing, but it’s still good enough to be in the V&A.
They were previously thought to have been Italian, as this one’s got the twelve Caesars and engravings of Raphael. But then a very important museum curator looked at these and informed us that they were of Spanish origin, because this one relates to another from a French nobles’ collection, and that piece is described as argent d’espagne, so it’s a Spanish silver table. That one was in the exhibition at Versailles and is now in the Rijksmuseum; they’re all closely related. Another one had been taken apart and made into a mirror’s frame and that’s in the Wallace Collection at London. Silver furniture was perhaps the most kingly and symbol of power. And didn’t often survive, because it would be melted down in times of need, since it was basically a currency.
Photo: Henry Moore table
Caption: A travertine center table designed by Henry Moore and made under his direction at the Henraux Marble Works, Querceta
Hobbs: “This is my favorite piece in the show. This is the Henry Moore table. It is the only piece that Henry Moore ever designed and he designed it for his own family for a breakfast and dinner table, using travertine marble.”
Rinza: “We bought it from his daughter, actually. She wrote a lovely letter describing how they used it and how he came to make it.”
Hobbs: “Since everything he did was artistic, it’s still a beautiful work of art. It’s got absolute lightness for something so monumental; it just touches the ground, it barely rests on the ground.”
"On Tops" at The Carlton Hobbs Gallery
by Cappi Williamson
Last week, The Curated Object's Cappi Williamson had the privilege of speaking with the two masterminds behind the exhibition "On Tops" at Carlton Hobbs’ gallery space on East 93rd Street in New York: Carlton Hobbs and his business partner Stephanie Rinza. As curators, collectors, and historians, they were busy preparing for the next evening’s party celebrating of the opening.
But as they reveal, the show actually celebrates an era, beginning in 16th century Italy, when tabletops were considered objects of art in their own right, as well as symbols of wealth and power. Hobbs’ collection includes some of the best classical examples of innovation, beauty, and conservation in tabletops, rivaling that of any show at the Cooper-Hewitt or Victoria & Albert Museum. In fact, one silver top belongs to a family of tops, another of which is in the V&A and isn’t half as well preserved as Hobbs’. “We decided to stage this exhibition because our current inventory include a very interesting cross-section and variety of table tops,” said Hobbs. Indeed, silver, fossilized wood, pietra dura, and porcelain are just a few examples of the sublime materiality that makes each piece an object of adoration. Each is beautifully displayed in rooms themed according to Naturals, Mosaics, Pietra Dura and Marble, Scagliola, and Silver, Glass, and Wood.
While the tops range from the 2nd Century A.D. with a beautiful mosaic pilfered from a Roman ruin and run all the way through a thoroughly modern 1963 with an exquisite piece from Henry Moore, many originate in the 17th to 19th centuries-- a time when, as Hobbs explains, many pieces, “refer to antiquity, particularly Pompeian ideas. There was a whole late 18th and 19th century obsession with things archaeological.” Many of the tops come from the U.K., brought by the wealthy upon return from their “Grand Tours” of Europe, and were likely to be a prized souvenir among vases, sculpture, and bronzes. “Tops were very graphic and in England in the great country house collections, you have the most wonderful examples,” explained Hobbs. “The top would be shipped back from the grand tour and a cabinet maker or designer would have made the base for it.” This makes the tops’ provenance so tricky to determine and Hobbs and Rinza have actually become decorative arts sleuths. “Sometimes you find pieces with a very unusual design content and there isn’t enough time to do your research; you’ve got to go for it,” said Hobbs. In addition to their extensive library and the knowledge that comes from 30+ years in the antiques business, Hobbs and Rinza have even found clues to their pieces’ provenance from such far-flung sources as an archeological students’ broadcast of a dig on Flick’r. Even the beautiful townhouse that houses the gallery (which is a reason to visit the show in itself) seems full of secrets. As it sits waiting to be unearthed, the pair is in the process of restoring it to its original design.
For more information please visit: The Carlton Hobbs Gallery
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