Charles Topino, maître in 1773.

Established in the rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Topino specialized in the production of light furniture enriched with marquetry, either in the form of flowers or 'naif' still-lives inspired by the borders of Chinese screens. Employed as a specialist marqueteur by marchands such as Héricourt, Dautriche, Migeon, Denizot, Delorme, Tuart, Boudin and Moreau. Topino's characteristic bronze dorés were cast by Viret, chased by Chamboin and Dubuisson and gilded by Bécard, Gérard and Vallet. As his daybook for the years 1771-79 clearly reveals, Topino had very few private clients. He supplied a table of this general form to a marchand at a cost of around sixty to seventy livres.

Several tables of this model by Topino are recorded, either with a marble top, as here, or with a marquetry top. A near identical pair of tables, both stamped by Topino, are discussed in Partridge Recent Acquisitions, 1998, no.52, pp. 126-7; three tables of closely related form are illustrated in J. Nicolay, L'Art et la Manière des Maîtres Ebénistes Français au XVIIIe Siècle, Paris, 1956, p.461, figs. J,K,L. A further table of this model, retaining the marchands label for Louis Moreau, was sold anonymously at Christie's, New York, 27 May 1999, lot 289.