Dessert stand

This dessert stand is an excellent example of decorative arts in the grand and imposing neoclassical style, a style heavily inspired by the art and culture of classical antiquity. Popular in Europe in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it remained the dominant style for several decades, influencing architecture, art, drama and design.

The Dessert stand features three standing caryatids, figures based on those on the Erechtheion porch of the Acropolis, in Athens. Arms upright, they hold up an elaborate bowl in the style of a woven basket. Dessert stands such as this one were opulent and dramatic and designed as a feature for the centre of the banqueting table and intended to hold fresh and preserved fruit and flowers for the dessert courses. The design for the stand is attributed to the famous neoclassical sculptor and designer John Flaxman –known for his work for the potter Josiah Wedgwood – and executed by one of the leading silversmiths of the period, Paul Storr. The original drawing by Flaxman in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, bears the description, ‘design for a fruit stand, the bottom section of which is adapted from a design for a silver-gilt candelabrum, one of a pair designed by John Flaxman for George IV when Prince of Wales, in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle’.