A Briar Wood Lacquer-Panelled Side Table, Last Quarter 19th Century

An unusually decorative late Victorian side table combining the period taste for naturalistic rustic furniture with the growing fascination for Japanese decorative arts. The square lacquered top is finely decorated in the Japanese manner with birds amongst flowering branches, heightened with gilt and enclosed by a moulded border.

The base is particularly distinctive, constructed in so-called ‘briar wood’ to imitate an intricate framework of interlaced branches, with rows of turned wooden beads and pendant drops suspended between the supports. The splayed legs are joined by crossed stretchers, giving the table an almost architectural delicacy despite its deliberately rustic character.

The contrast between the refined lacquer panel and the richly textured branchwork base gives the piece a particularly eccentric and sophisticated character, reflecting the late 19th-century enthusiasm for Japonisme, exotic ornament and furniture inspired by the natural world.