Console

An empire (suspended) console. The term console is applied to architectural supports used since ancient times, for example, in Greek and Roman architecture. The Latin word ‘consol’, meaning comfort or support, has passed into many European languages. In France, the term ‘console’, meaning support, bracket, came to mean the narrow or semi-circular decorative tables and wall pedestals introduced at the end of the 17th century. They were used to set up sculptures, clocks and similar products used for decorating representative interiors. Consoles, popularised in European interior design during the 18th century, took shapes and forms according to the prevailing fashion with characteristic stylistic details. For greater stability, they were usually fixed to the wall by which they stood. Smaller and lighter decorative brackets hung directly on the wall, fulfilling the role of a small shelf, made of wood, plaster, porcelain, carved or gilded, were called consoles. The side of the console or suspended shelf adjacent to the wall remained raw, unworked, unlike the other sides facing the viewer. The presented wooden console, decorated with lion heads, garlands of laurel and ending with the so-called cone at the bottom was taken over from the Potocki collection in Łańcut, and is a pair for S.3257MŁ. It was made in the ‘empire’ or imperial style that originated in France at the beginning of the 19th century in the era of Napoleon Bonaparte. He was fascinated with the antiquity of Greece, the Roman Empire and Egypt. Developed by Teresa Bagińska-Żurawska https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9243-3967