Looking at what we know about the furniture of the château Saint-Louis and intendant's palace from inventories and other accounts, it is clear that type, style, and adornment were carefully chosen to convey the power and prestige of the monarchy and the rank of the individuals appointed governor general and intendant of New France. Although the structures themselves had been renovated at royal expense in the 1720s and were the king's property, the cost of actual furnishings fell upon these officials.
Pierre de Rigaud's claim for items lost after the fall of Québec in 1759 makes a point to emphasize the metropolitan origins, in particular Parisian, of many decorative pieces and fixtures used in the château and likely purchased during his residency there from 1753 to 1755. The combined work of menuisiers (woodcarvers) and ébénistes (cabinetmakers), furniture craftsmanship and style developed in the capital city set the tone for elite furnishings that spread to the provinces and beyond.
Pierre de Rigaud's claim for items lost after the fall of Québec in 1759 makes a point to emphasize the metropolitan origins, in particular Parisian, of many decorative pieces and fixtures used in the château and likely purchased during his residency there from 1753 to 1755. The combined work of menuisiers (woodcarvers) and ébénistes (cabinetmakers), furniture craftsmanship and style developed in the capital city set the tone for elite furnishings that spread to the provinces and beyond.
In the case of a gilt console with its marble top (une console dorée avec son dessus de marbre), described by Pierre de Rigaud in the salle de compagnie of the château Saint-Louis, its place of manufacture is unknown. Although it could have been made in a provincial city, if not Parisian it likely drew inspiration from models produced in the capital by mid-century. Eschewing the rigid, turned forms of the seventeenth century, consoles, tables-consoles, tables en console, and pieds de table produced in France after 1700 are characterized by exuberant asymmetrical carving featuring everything from shells, flowers, and acanthus leaves to masks, dragons, and monkeys.
Such pieces had a dual ornamental and practical function. Placed in hallways and interior spaces used for receiving and entertaining, console table could function both as sideboards and display space for ceramics or even the Parisian clock purchased by Pierre de Rigaud. The use of a console table to showcase a clock can be seen in a detail of a 1765 portrait of Maria Luisa of Parma, a granddaughter of Louis XV, by Laurent Pécheux.
Furnishings worked in concert with one another, and it is possible that the console at the château stood beneath one of the two large mirrors purchased in Paris and also installed in the salle de compagnie. This decorative conceit is illustrated in many design books of the period.
Furnishings worked in concert with one another, and it is possible that the console at the château stood beneath one of the two large mirrors purchased in Paris and also installed in the salle de compagnie. This decorative conceit is illustrated in many design books of the period.
The designs of Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier (1695-1750) for a grand cabinet, dating to 1740 and now in the collection of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, illustrate the common pairing of console tables with large pier glasses, referred to as trumeaux. Although far grander than anything that ever existed in French colonial Canada, it is easy to imagine some of Pierre de Rigaud's 12 armchairs placed on either side of the console, as seen in this image.
In inventories of the period, console tables are almost always identified together with their marble tops. Claude-Thomas Dupuy recorded two presumably giltwood consoles topped with Languedoc marble that were removed from the palace in 1728. This red- and white-colored marble was and still is quarried near the village of Caunes-Minervois in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southwestern France. In effect, the actual carved element supporting the table surface was often identified by the term pied, meaning foot.
Designs for pieds de tables were published throughout the eighteenth century by designers such as Meissonnier, Nicholas Pineau (1684-1754), and Pierre Edmé Babel (1720-1775). The following images for rococo or Louis XV style consoles are more in keeping with what Pierre de Rigaud might have had in the château Saint-Louis in the 1750s.