Gilbert Poillerat - Design London Wednesday, September 24, 2008 | Phillips

Create your first list.

Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

  • Provenance

    Private commission for a villa on the Côte d'Azur; with Galerie Jean Louis Danant, Paris

  • Literature

    François Baudot, Gilbert Poillerat Maître Ferronier, Paris, 1992, p.241 for a similar example

  • Catalogue Essay

    Hercules, uncommon man, suffered common misfortune: he was a pawn of the gods. Hera, goddess of marriage, induced in Hercules a fit of rage as punishment for Zeus’s infidelity with the hero’s mother, Alcmenes. Under Hera’s spell, Hercules murdered his own wife, Megara, and their three children. As penance, the Oracle of Delphi prescribed Twelve Labours set by Eurystheus, the illegitimate king on Hercules’s rightful throne. Accompanied by Iolaus, his eremenos, Hercules discharged his tasks and restored his honour.
     
    The glass top of the present table is in three sections. Poillerat depicted six of the Twelve Labours, listed below in their traditional order as determined by Peisandros of Rhodes in a now lost epic poem, circa 600 B.C.
     
    Labour 1.         Slay the Nemean Lion to steal its hide
    Labour 2.         Slay the Lernaean Hydra
    Labour 6.         Slay the Stymphalian Birds
    Labour 8.         Steal the Mares of Diomedes
    Labour 11.       Steal the Apples of the Hesperides, guarded by the dragon Ladon
    Labour 12.       Capture Cerberus, guardian dog of Hades

50

Illuminated dining table

1940s
Patinated and gilt wrought iron, parcel-gilt glass.
76.2 x 274.3 x 134.6 cm. (30 x 108 x 53 in.)
Glass moulded with monogram ‘GP’.

Estimate
£45,000 - 55,000 

Sold for £37,250

Design

25 Sept 2008, 2pm
London