Console of Jean-Jacques Argueyrolles, France, 1990s

French work, 1990s. H 85 X W 117 X D 35 cm. Wrought iron and gold leaf. Very good condition. The top is a hammered sheet with raw edges, cut by flame, into which two bands of gold leaf are inlaid. It rests on two tapered golden spindles, crossed by flat black iron and joined by a curved bar; two arrow-shaped irons descend from the top to the ground, carrying nothing. Jean-Jacques Argueyrolles, born in 1954, belongs to the generation of blacksmiths who, in the 1980s and 1990s, took wrought iron out of pastiche to treat it as a sculptural material. The contrast of rust and gold is his signature. The forging leaves each piece with its own surface accidents: variations in rust and areas lacking gold leaf are part of the object, not defects.