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DEVIL'S HEAD CONSOLE

DEVIL'S HEAD CONSOLE

Regular price €800,00 EUR
Regular price Sale price €800,00 EUR
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ref: #RK00-739

This remarkable carved wooden wall console, dating from the 19th century, powerfully and expressively illustrates the Neo-Gothic aesthetic imbued with fantasy and theatricality. Made from dark wood, probably walnut, it features a finely carved devil’s head placed as the central element beneath the shelf.

The expressive and powerful face embodies a typical demonic figure from the infernal imagery of the 19th century. With curved horns rising from a fiery mane, this devil displays a piercing gaze, furrowed brows, an aquiline nose, and a twisted mouth in an ambiguous grimace, between mocking smile and silent threat. Its tapered mustache blends into a full beard carved with stylized vegetal curls, descending to the lower tip of the console.

The ornamental treatment of the wood shows great technical virtuosity: every curl of the beard, every strand of hair, every facial relief is worked with meticulous care. Symmetrical scrolls frame the head, enhancing the solemnity of the whole and creating a rigorous visual structure typical of the historicist taste of the century.

The upper shelf, with its elegantly moulded and curved edge, rests on this infernal figure with deliberate theatricality. It was intended to hold a decorative object – a bust, statuette, or vase – serving both as a support and a decorative centerpiece in a bourgeois or aristocratic 19th-century interior.

By its quality of execution and striking iconography, this console is not just an occasional piece of furniture but a sculptural work in its own right, reflecting the romantic interest in mystery, the diabolical, and the marvelous, so characteristic of its time, which would perfectly find its place in a cabinet of curiosities, alongside singular and mysterious objects.

PERIOD: 19th century
DIMENSIONS: 30 cm x 30 cm
SIZE: 11.8" x 11.8"

In the 19th century, the Romantic movement expressed a deep fascination with mystery, the supernatural, and the fantastic. Reacting to the rationality of the Enlightenment, artists and writers rediscovered legends, religious symbols, and unsettling figures. The diabolical became a central theme, not only to frighten but also to explore the shadowy depths of the human soul. Depictions of demons, ghosts, or ambiguous beings populated literature, sculpture, and decorative arts. This taste for the strange went hand in hand with an attraction to the Middle Ages, seen as a time of intense faith and hidden mysteries. Gothic imagination unfolded in churches, bourgeois interiors, and cabinets of curiosities. The marvelous coexisted with the unsettling, revealing a world where the visible conceals the invisible.

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