Chinese Game Table, Canton (china), Circa 1850

Chinese game table, Canton (China), circa 1850.
Lacquered wood, silver and gold leaf.
Measurements: height 78 cm, length 83.5 cm, width 63.5 cm.

A very rare example of a Cantonese-made chinoiserie table that belonged to King Vittorio Emanuele II of Savoy. The piece of furniture has shaped corners with typically English lines.
Rectangular in shape, in the center it has a square compartment with a double-sided lacquered lid: one side decorated, both in silver and red, inside which Chinese figures are painted in gold; the other side features a backgammon game.
The table is supported by a central leg that ends with three feet sculpted in the shape of dragon heads. The use of lacquer on a silver background by the craftsmen clarifies a commission from Western royal courts, where furnishings cast in silver were very common. What indicates the destination of the table for King Vittorio Emanuele II of Savoy is the presence of his crowned monogram, framed in laurel, repeated in the four corners at the top. The decoration is distinct in style from the entire iconographic apparatus and from this we can deduce that it was supplied to the craftsmen of Canton by the clients themselves, who may have been the King of Savoy himself or another European ruler, offered by them as a gift on the occasion of the ascension to the throne of Sardinia of Vittorio Emanuele II in 1849.