Mobilier du XVIIIe siècle à décors de panneaux de mosaïques de pierres dures (pietra dura), par Adam Weisweiler et Martin Carlin

Je profite de la présentation d'un meuble rare, proposé prochainement en vente aux enchères, et annoncé ici :

Christie's NY - Sale Dalva Brothers, Parisian Taste in New-York (April 2020)

...pour - enfin - inaugurer ce sujet (promis de longue date ) !


- A LATE LOUIS XVI PIETRA DURA AND ORMOLU-MOUNTED EBONY SECRÉTAIRE EN CABINET
BY ADAM WEISWEILER AND ALMOST CERTAINLY SUPPLIED BY DOMINIQUE DAGUERRE, CIRCA 1785-1790,
THE ORMOLU POSSIBLY BY FRANÇOIS REMOND,
THE PIETRA DURA PLAQUES ATTRIBUTED TO THE GRAND DUCAL WORKSHOPS, FLORENCE, LATE 17TH CENTURY (THE FLORAL AND LANDSCAPE PLAQUES) AND SECOND HALF 18TH CENTURY (THE FIGURAL PLAQUES)

With a rectangular Spanish brocatelle marble top above a scalloped foliate rosette frieze centered with a plaque of putti holding floral garlands in the clouds over a cabinet door flanked by engaged fluted and turned columns and with a central pietra paesina plaque depicting a huntsman and dog beside a tower surrounded by pietra dura plaques of turbanned gentleman, floral sprays and ribbon-tied floral sprays, one with a bird, all within beaded borders and opening to four acajou moucheté drawers, the sides with female caryatids in ormolu, resting on a stand with a breakfronted frieze drawer inset with latticework panels and opening to a tooled leather writing surface flanked by ormolu-mounted inkwell and two niches raised on brass-inlaid engaged columns joined by a Spanish brocatelle marble medial shelf continuing to brass-inlaid circular tapering legs terminating in ormolu caps, with partial stamp A WEI..., one effaced stamp and JME
52 in. (132 cm.) high, 31 in. (79 cm.) wide, 16 ¼ in. (41 cm.) deep


Image : Christie's

Provenance :
Possibly Dominique Daguerre; his sale, Christie's, 25 March 1791, lot 42.
Possibly in the inventory of the dealer Rocheux (active 1790-1820) and described in his July 1820 estate inventory as item 163.

Lot Essay

This magnificent secrétaire en cabinet is a masterpiece of French cabinetry and is the perfect synthesis between Adam Weisweiler, an incredibly talented ébéniste at the height of his powers, and one of the era’s most creative and influential marchands-merciers, Dominique Daguerre.

Richly mounted and utilizing distinctive precious materials such as 17th century Florentine plaques and Spanish brocatelle marble, the cabinet can possibly be identified with lot 42 of the sale of Daguerre’s stock on 25 March 1791 at Christie’s. It is described as ‘a superbe and singularly elegant ebony cabinet the front curiously and beautifully inlaid with gems, comprised of precious stones from Florence, and Brocadella marble top, superbly mounted in ormoulu' and was sold for 105 gns. with the annotation in the auctioneer's book '105 John'.

Image : Christie's


THE TASTE FOR PRECIOUS STONES

The combination of pietra dura and pietra paesina plaques on the cabinet door of the secretaire, with their remarkably life-like depictions of birds, flowers and a Florentine landscape are a perfect evocation of paintings in stone. Enlightened connoisseurs regarded stonecutting as one of the greatest manifestations of ancient Roman art, and its revival was a key tenet of the Renaissance.
In 1588 Ferdinando de’ Medici founded the Grand Ducal Workshops in Florence, and the fame of their exquisite creations soon spread throughout Europe.

Image : Christie's

The various dates of the plaques on the present lot illustrate a revival of interest as aristocratic connoisseurs such as the duc d’Aumont sought objects that employed precious hardstones for their collections. Daguerre would have taken plaques from earlier works and incorporated them into more au courant styles.
The present lot is one such example with its late 17th century floral and landscape plaques from the famed Florentine Grand Ducal workshops, a mid-18th century pietra paesina plaque and the two fashionable single figures essentially imported soon after they were made.



Images : Christie's


THE PROVENANCE

The cabinet also possibly formed part of the stock of the dealer Rocheux (active 1790-1820) as it could be identified as that described in the inventory of his estate after his death in 1820 as item 163. ‘Un secrétaire à abattant avec quatre tiroirs en dedans, pilastres sur les côtés à figures caryatides en bronze doré au mat, décoré au milieu d’un tableau en pierres fines, fleurs, fruits, ouvrage de Florence, le fond en ébène avec pieds tournés.'

Image : Christie's

Rocheux was prosperous and had considerable financial means at his disposal as well as a shop with a grand address at 8 rue Royale.
He was recorded as a purchaser during the sales of the contents of Versailles in 1793 and delivered some modern mahogany furniture to the château de Fontainebleau during the Napoleonic era.
His rich stock was valued at 48,000 livres at his death and included several Weisweiler models supplied to Daguerre in addition to Boulle furniture, porcelain, works of art and Renaissance enamels. Rocheux’s clientele was equally grand and included Talleyrand as well as a number of English clients, including George IV’s agent, ‘M. Benoist de Londres.’
In 1816, he is recorded as the purchaser of a console by Weisweiler with pietra dura plaques which was originally placed in the Blue Velvet Ante Room at Carlton House and is now at Buckingham Palace (RCIN 2602). After Rocheux’s death, his son did not continue the business and the stock was sold on 29 January 1821.


THE DESIGN

The form and ornament of this secretaire is one of the most sophisticated interpretations of the many elements seen in Weisweiler’s commissions for Daguerre towards the end of the ancien régime.
Daguerre had an enormous stock of luxurious materials including 17th century Japanese lacquer, Florentine hardstone panels and rare porcelains.

His designs, which would break up and combine these materials in a seemingly endless variety of ways, created a luxurious and instantly desirable new aesthetic. However, it was Daguerre’s extensive network of highly skilled bronziers and ébénistes that turned his designs into a finished product.
Weisweiler’s talent as an ébéniste is clearly evident in his execution of the highly sophisticated design of the columns flanking the paneled door. The remarkable skill required to achieve the spreading spirally-turned lower section intertwined seamlessly with ormolu and the fluted baluster above demonstrates the outstanding level of precision and finesse that Weisweiler had reached at this point in his career.

He was working almost exclusively for Daguerre and had succeeded the ébéniste Martin Carlin in that role.

Image : Christie's

This secrétaire en cabinet achieves the perfect balance between sobriety and luxury. The deceptively simple form is offset by the judicious use of luxurious Florentine hardstone plaques and restrained, beautifully chased ormolu mounts, almost certainly by the bronzier François Rémond.
Although he worked independently with some of the leading Parisian ébénistes, Rémond had an extensive relationship with Daguerre and was his principal supplier; he is recorded to have supplied work valued at the staggering sum of 920,000 livres between 1778 and 1792.

Image : Christie's

The link to Rémond is supported by a pair of candelabra made by Rémond and supplied by Daguerre to the Princess Kinsky now in the Château de Versailles.
They have bases with almost identical mounts to the frieze of this secretaire (C. Baulez, ‘La Luminaire de la Princesse Kinsky’, Estampille/L’Object D’Art, May 1991, p. 97). Weisweiler also made a virtually identical secrétaire en cabinet now in in the Huntington Library and Art Collections, Pasadena (reproduced here).
The only differences are the model of ormolu figures on the sides, the door features nine panels of Japanese lacquer and opens on the opposite side. It could potentially be identified as Nº 45 in the Daguerre sale, “a small curious cabinet of the fine old raised Japan with brocadella top and ormoulu mountings (25£).


WEISWEILER’S OEUVRE

Both pieces have features that appear repeatedly on other furniture either attributed to or stamped by Adam Weisweiler.
The distinctive columns and the same frieze appear on another secrétaire en cabinet mounted with Sèvres plaques at the James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor (P. Lemonnier, Weisweiler, Paris, 1983, p.66) and the columns are also on a pair of meubles d’appui formerly in the Grog Carven collection and now in the Louvre (Ibid. p.100).
A pair of meubles d’appui attributed to Weisweiler in the Wallace collection share the same large scale ormolu figures on the sides (F395). Pietra dura plaques also feature on a commode in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace where they are surrounded by Boulle marquetry panels (RCIN 2593); It has since been identified as lot 59 in the Daguerre sale, which was annotated in the auctioneer's book 'GW', which has tentatively been identified by Colin Streeter as being George, Prince of Wales.

Another example with pietra dura plaques stamped by both Adam Weisweiler and Martin Carlin also shares the same frieze mount. It was sold from the collection of Akram Ojjeh, Christie’s, Monaco, 11-12 December 1999, lot 30. The presence of the stamps by both makers provides an intriguing link to a pair of side cabinets in the White Drawing room at Buckingham Palace which were part of the collection of the Prince Regent, later George IV.
They are illustrated in Charles Wilde’s circa 1816 watercolor of the Blue Velvet Room at Carlton House(W. H. Pyne History of the Royal Residences, 1816, vol III) and display spiral and fluted columns, a closely related arrangement of plaques (with figural panels flanking a pietra paesina panel) as well as large scale ormolu figures to the sides. They were extended in width to contain side shelves around 1834 when they were transferred to Buckingham Palace where they remain today in the White Drawing Room (RCIN 2425).
Attributed to Martin Carlin, they provide another intriguing link to these two makers as it illustrates how Daguerre reused certain combinations in different forms and also employed two of the era’s most talented ébénistes to execute his designs.

Image : Christie's


WEISWEILER AND DAGUERRE

Born in Neuwied, Weisweiler is believed to have studied with David Roentgen (1743-1807) before emigrating to Paris, where he was established as an artisan libre – a foreign worker protected by the medieval right of refuge – by 1777, the year of his marriage.
The following year he became a maître-ébéniste, and established his workshop on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, joining Reisener and the elite group of German artisans providing pieces for the French royal family.
While he is recorded to have worked with the marchand-mercier Julliot, the luxury pieces for which he is best known were almost exclusively sold directly through Dominique Daguerre.

He provided the designs for many of Weisweiler’s most important commissions and together they supplied the most influential and esteemed patrons of their day: Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, George, Prince of Wales (later King George IV), and Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna and Grand Duke Paul of Russia.
The heir to Simon-Philippe Poirier's atelier, Daguerre was the foremost Parisian marchand-mercier of the last decades of the ancien régime.

From the 1770s onward, he was the prevailing tastemaker in Paris and subsequently London where he opened a second atelier in 1778 to meet the demands of his growing clientele. He specialized in supplying objets de luxe to the French court and, increasingly during the 1780s, to the English and foreign nobility.
He supplied the furniture to George, Prince of Wales for Carlton House as well as Brighton Pavilion.
In 1787 alone, Daguerre’s bill to the Prince of Wales was a staggering £14,565 13s 6d. Daguerre also worked for the Prince’s circle and provided furniture to Duke of Bedford for Woburn Abbey and Earl Spencer for Althorp.

By 1791, financial constraints and current events necessitated the sale of his stock at Christie’s which was enough to fill an entire catalogue and among many illustrious items likely included this very sécretaire en cabinet.


Image : Christie's

* Source et infos complémentaires : Christie's NY - Sale Dalva Brothers (2 April 2020)

La nuit, la neige a écrit:

...pour - enfin - inaugurer ce sujet (promis de longue date ) !

...    vieux motard que j'aimais !  

Ces mosaïques de pierres dures sont éclatantes de couleurs, en même temps que stupéfiantes de finesse et de subtilité !  Quelle merveilles !
Un grand merci !    


La suite, la suite !!!  

Comme précisé dans la note de vente du précédent secrétaire, le roi George IV du Royaume-Uni (1762-1830) fut un amateur de meubles décorés ainsi, acquis pour la plupart au marchand Rocheux.

Portrait of George IV, when Prince of Wales
By John Hoppner
Oil on canvas, c. 1796
Image : The Royal Collection Trust


En voici deux autres, toujours d'Adam Weisweiler, et exposés à Buckingham Palace :

Console table
Adam Weisweiler
France, late 18th century
Oak and ebony with pietra dura and gilt bronze mounts and granite top | 97.5 x 146.0 x 59.0 cm
Silk Tapestry Room, Buckingham Palace
Image : The Royal Collection Trust

Description :
Rectangular console table veneered in ebony with a granite top; fitted with three frieze drawers, the outer two with panels of high relief pietra dura depicting fruit, flanking a central drawer with a bronze relief of putti with the attributes of learning adn the arts. On four square-section legs, the front two with gilt bronze female terminals, joined by a shaped stretcher, on turned gilt feet.

Image : The Royal Collection Trust

Provenance :
This table was originally in the bedroom of the Princess of Salm-Kirbourg and was sold on 8 November 1790, after her death, for 6000 francs.
It appeared again in the auction of a dealer, Villemain, on 20 July 1798 (lot 59) and once more in an auction of the goods of M. Guichard, 21 March 1810.

This table was purchased in 1816 by Benois on behalf of George IV, from the Paris dealer Rocheux, for 7,250 francs. It appears in a watercolour of the Blue Velvet Ante Room at Carlton House, dating from 1819.


Ainsi que cette spectaculaire commode :

Commode
By Adam Weisweiler
France, c. 1785-90
Oak, ebony, hardstones, tortoiseshell, brass, pewter, mahogany, boxwood, purplewood, gilt bronze, brocatello marble | 100.3 x 149.8 x 48.3 cm
The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace
Image : The Royal Collection Trust

Provenance :
Acquired by George IV, when Prince of Wales. It had entered the Collection by 16 September 1807, when Benjamin Vuillamy submitted a bill for £85.5.- for repair and regilding of its mounts. Possibly bought at Daguerre's sale at Christie's (25 March 1791, lot 59)
(...)


Description :
Rectangular cabinet veneered with ebony and set with three pietra dura panels of flowers and birds, the central panel incorporating high relief pietra dura fruit; bordered with premiere partie boulle marquetry on tortoiseshell. Fitted with three doors containing two tiers of three drawers. With a mottled brocatello marble top and on six tapering legs.

The leading Louis XVI ébéniste, or cabinetmaker, Adam Weisweiler (1744–1820), created this cabinet c. 1785, uniting a restrained late eighteenth-century neoclassical furniture form with exuberant seventeenth-century Florentine hardstone decorative panels.
Weisweiler was employed by the dealer, or marchand-mercier, Dominique Daguerre, who counted George, Prince of Wales (later George IV), among his main clients; and it was the Prince of Wales who acquired the cabinet, possibly in 1791, and certainly before 1807.


Images : The Royal Collection Trust

The earlier elements of the cabinet are of greater interest for botanical purposes.
The three inset front panels, and one to each side, are of pietra dura, literally 'hard stone'. The technique of insetting specimen stones, to create either two- or three-dimensional images, was developed in the late sixteenth century in Florence, under the patronage of the Medici dukes.
'The promise of works of beauty that would last forever' must have particularly attracted the Medici, and the natural shades of the stones enabled close rendering of scenes from nature, which frequently included floral subjects.


Image : The Royal Collection Trust

One central panel and the two side panels of the Weisweiler cabinet depict parrots with baskets of fruit and flowers. The fruits are identifiable as peaches, grapes and cherries; the birds include a hoopoe on the right side panel and exotic pheasants on the central and left side panels.
These fruit and bird panels date from the early seventeenth century, when the stone selecting and cutting skills of the stone workers had developed so that still-life scenes were possible.
These schemes were particularly appealing to the furniture-makers visiting the pietra dura workshops, as they were more striking visually.



Images : The Royal Collection Trust

However, the earlier and botanically finer panels are those on either side of the central panel. These panels depict a tulip to the left and a crown imperial to the right, and probably date from the earliest period of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, the Florentine pietra dura workshop established by Ferdinand I de'Medici (1549–1609) in 1588.
It is possible that these two panels survived due to their subject matter; the fascination with the tulip in the late seventeenth century is well documented, and it may have outlasted its less exotic counterparts being depicted in pietra dura.


Images : The Royal Collection Trust

The crown imperial was a flower long associated with power and majesty on account of its name, its regal, upright appearance, and its crown-shaped flower head. Both flowers reflected botanical trade and wealth, and would have been immediately identifiable to an elite seventeenth-century audience.
Their reuse in the late eighteenth century is a testimony both to the longevity of the medium and the high quality of the Florentine workshop. The value placed on the output of the Florentine workshop is shown by the existence of other early pietra dura panels with later bases or surrounds.

* Text adapted from Painting Paradise: The Art of the Garden, London, 2015.


A suivre....

Cette commode est à mouriiiiiiiiir ...... avec ses fleurs, ses oiseaux, ses gentils petits mollets torsadés .... je craque !

Je reviendrai aux meubles du roi George IV, mais je poursuis pour l'instant avec quelques autres meubles attribués à Adam Weisweiler...



Cabinet (one of a pair)
Attributed to Adam Weisweiler (French, 1744 - 1820, master 1778)
About 1785
French (cabinet); Italian (pietra dure)
Pietra dura plaques mid-17th–mid-18th century, Oak, pine, and beech veneered with ebony and mahogany; pewter stringing; set with pietra dure plaques; gilt-bronze mounts; portor d'Italie marble top
101.6 × 150.2 × 53 cm (40 × 59 1/8 × 20 7/8 in.), 76.DA.9.1
Image : The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Provenance :
- 1790 / M. Marin (Paris, France) [76.DA.9.1: sold, Catalogue d'une très-belle collection de tableaux [...] provenant du cabinet de feu M. Marin, Lebrun jeune, Saubert, Paris, March 22, 1790, lot 712 for 3,100 livres]

- 1793/ Vincent Donjeux, French, (rue Fossés-Montmartre, currently rue d'Aboukir, Paris, France) [76.DA.9.1: sold, Des objets précieux: trouvés après le décès du citoyen Vincent Donjeux, Lebrun, Paillet, Paris, April 29 et seq., 1793, no. 554, for 3,200 livres]

1808 - 1852 / Alexander Archibald Douglas, 10th duke of Hamilton and 7th duke of Brandon, British, 1767 - 1852 (Old State Breakfast Room, Hamilton Palace, Lanarkshire, Scotland), 76.DA.9.1-2: purchased by Alexander Archibald Douglas, while as Marquess of Douglas and Clydesdale, in Saint Petersburg between January 1807 and August 1808 as "2 Bureaux en Mozaique de florence," apparently at the cost of 6,000 rubles; by descent to his son, William Alexander Douglas, eleventh duke of Hamilton and eighth duke of Brandon.
(...)


Image : The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Image : The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Presentation :
From the Renaissance, art connoisseurs valued naturally colorful and rare hardstones, known as pietre dure, especially when they were arranged by artisans into plaques of mosaic patterns or pictorial reliefs. Often, the more splendid plaques were mounted into custom made and suitably grand cabinets.

The pietre dure plaques on this cabinet date from the mid-1600s to the mid-1700s; they were probably made by Italian craftsmen working in Rome, Florence, or Paris at the Gobelins manufactory.
This particular cabinet passed through the Revolutionary-era Parisian art market in 1790 and 1793 before being acquired by the English ambassador to Saint-Petersburg, Russia, in 1808.



Cabinet (one of a pair)
Attributed to Adam Weisweiler (French, 1744 - 1820, master 1778)
About 1808
French (cabinet); Italian (pietra dure)
Pietra dura plaques mid-17th–late 18th century, Oak veneered with ebony and mahogany; pewter stringing; set with pietra dura plaques and and micromosaic roundels; gilt-bronze mounts; portor d'Italie marble top
101.6 × 150.2 × 54.6 cm (40 × 59 1/8 × 21 1/2 in.), 76.DA.9.2
Image : The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Provenance :
- 1808 - 1852 / Alexander Archibald Douglas, 10th duke of Hamilton and 7th duke of Brandon, British, 1767 - 1852 (Old State Breakfast Room, Hamilton Palace, Lanarkshire, Scotland), 76.DA.9.1-2: purchased by Alexander Archibald Douglas, while as Marquess of Douglas and Clydesdale, in Saint Petersburg between January 1807 and August 1808 as "2 Bureaux en Mozaique de florence," apparently at the cost of 6,000 rubles; by descent to his son, William Alexander Douglas, eleventh duke of Hamilton and eighth duke of Brandon.


Image : The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles


Image : The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles




Secrétaire
Made in Paris, probably by Adam Weisweiler (1744-1820)
c. 1785-1820
Ebony on oak and pine; marquetry of tortoiseshell, brass and pewter; pietre dure (hardstones) and gilt-bronze
Bequeathed by W. S. Sutherland
Image : Victoria & Albert Museum

This secretaire (a French term for a writing desk) was used for keeping private papers secret and safe. At first sight the piece looks like a cabinet or cupboard. However, the front flap falls open to form a horizontal writing surface. The cabinet contains shelves and drawers and a drawer beneath the fall front for storing papers.

Materials & Making
This cabinet demonstrates two luxurious and expensive techniques for embellishing furniture. The first is boulle, created by laying a light-coloured metal, either brass or pewter, over a dark ground such as tortoiseshell. The second is the decoration of the fall front and the drawer beneath it with pietre dure, an Italian term for inlaid hardstones. This example includes red jasper, lapis lazuli, amethysts and marbles from Italy and Tunisia.
Both the boulle side panels and the pietra dura front panels originally date from the 17th century and have been reused here, illustrating how highly 19th-century collectors and antiquarians valued such fine craftsmanship.

Time
It is unusual to find such a cabinet mounted with a combination of both boulle and pietra dura panels. This piece should probably be dated to the early 19th century, although it is made in the style of the late18th.







Référence inconnue ?
Source : Galerie Berger / Adam Weisweiler


A suivre.... :

Retour à Buckingham Palace, avec une présentation de meubles toujours acquis par le roi George IV.
Cette fois-ci ils sont attribués à un autre célèbre ébéniste bien connu ici : Martin Carlin (1730-1785).



Side Cabinet (From a pair) / RCIN 242 (1-2)
Attributed to Martin Carlin
White Drawing Room, Buckingham Palace
France, c. 1770-1830
Ebony, marble, tulipwood, purplewood, boxwood, gilt bronze, hardstone
Image : The Royal Collection Trust

Description
Pair of side cabinets, with ebony veneer and white marble top; interiors of tulipwood, purplewood and box. Central section contains five drawers, covered by a door inset with 12 Florentine pietra dura panels, depicting flowers and birds. Flanked by two rounded shelves backed with mirrored panels. Mounted in gilt bronze with columns.

Image : The Royal Collection Trust

Provenance
This pair of cabinets is very similar to pair RCIN 2425.1-2.
At least one pair was in the collection by 1807, according to a bill for repairs and regilding submitted by Vulliamy, although both pairs were probably acquired by George IV. Both pairs originally had red mottled brocatello marble tops, and it is possible that one pair may be seen, without the flanking shelves, in Charle's Wild's 1816 watercolour of the Blue Velvet Room at Carlton House.
By the late 1820s, this particular pair had been placed in the King's Closet and were transferred to Buckingham Palace in 1834.





Side Cabinet (From a pair) / RCIN 2425 (1-2)
Attributed to Martin Carlin
White Drawing Room, Buckingham Palace
France, c. 1770-1830
Ebony, marble, tulipwood, purplewood, boxwood, gilt bronze, hardstone
Image : The Royal Collection Trust

Description
Pair of side cabinets, with ebony veneer and white marble top; interiors of tulipwood, purplewood and box. Central section contains five drawers, covered by a door inset with 12 Florentine pietra dura panels, depicting flowers and birds. Flanked by two rounded shelves backed with mirrored panels. Mounted in gilt bronze with columns.



Provenance
This pair of cabinets is very similar to pair RCIN 2424.1-2.
At least one pair was in the collection by 1807, according to a bill for repairs and regilding submitted by Vulliamy, although both pairs were probably acquired by George IV. Both pairs originally had red mottled brocatello marble tops, and it is possible that one pair may be seen, without the flanking shelves, in Charle's Wild's 1816 watercolour of the Blue Velvet Room at Carlton House.
By the late 1820s, this particular pair had been placed in the South Ante Room and were transferred to Buckingham Palace in 1834.


Ces cabinets sont aujourd'hui disposés dans la White Drawing Room du palais de Buckingham Palace.


Queen Elizabeth II by Annie Leibovitz, 2007.
Official Portrait of HRH Queen Elizabeth II
Image : 2008 Annie Leibovitz, courtesy of the artist.

L'un d'eux dissimule une " porte secrète ", donnant accès aux appartements privés de la reine...

Nous connaissons cet autre meuble, pour l'avoir déjà présenté lors de nos discussions concernant les collections du...

Baron Pierre-Victor de Besenval

Le baron de Besenval dans son salon de compagnie
Henri-Pierre Danloux
Huile sur toile, 1791
Image : National Gallery, London

Acquise également par le roi George IV, cette commode est désormais conservée au palais de Buckingham :


Commode (commode à vantaux)
Martin Carlin (1730-85) (cabinet maker)
Gian Ambrogio Giachetti (maker)
Dominique Daguerre (d. 1796) (maker)
France, 1778
Stamped four times M. CARLIN JME
Oak, ebony, pietra dura, gilt bronze, marble | 94.8 x 152.2 x 58.3 cm (whole object)
Image : The Royal Collection Trust

Provenance
Probably made for Marie-Josephine Laguerre, c.1778; her sale Paris; Baron de Besenval sale, 1795; J.-J.-P.-A. Lapeyrière sale, Paris, 1825; bought in Paris for George IV, May 1828 (£375) by François Benois (Jutsham II, p.251). Repaired by J. Taylor in April 1839.


Description (extraits) :

Above all else this cabinet is a vehicle for the display of the pietra dura panels that adorn the front and sides. The ostentatious massing of these panels, seven carved in relief with fruit on the front and six inlaid panels at either end, consciously evokes the luxury and splendour of the grand siècle, as do the unusually densely modelled gilt bronze mounts.
The panels themselves almost certainly come from one of the great cabinets made for Louis XIV in the royal workshops at the Gobelins; during conservation, two of the relief panels were found to be signed on the back Gachetti [sic], for Gian Ambrogio Giachetti, a Florentine lapidary working at the Gobelins between 1670 and 1675.

Image : The Royal Collection Trust

Most of these royal cabinets were broken up in the eighteenth century as they went out of fashion, but the pietra dura panels were preserved as precious objects in their own right. With the revival of interest in the Louis XIV period during the 1760s and 1770s, these panels began to be recycled on neo-classical furniture.
Among the marchands-merciers (dealer-decorators) who specialised in this field were P.-F. Julliot and Dominique Daguerre. It was almost certainly the latter who commissioned this ambitious piece from Martin Carlin, one of a group of cabinet-makers who worked more or less exclusively for Daguerre.


Image : The Royal Collection Trust

The first owner of this cabinet was the notorious Parisian opera singer Marie-Joséphine Laguerre (1754-82), whose dissolute life led her to an early grave. It appeared in the sale of her collection, among other furniture by Carlin and Weisweiler.

Subsequently it belonged to Baron de Besenval, Colonel of the Swiss Guards and friend of Marie-Antoinette, at whose sale in 1795 Daguerre's connection with its manufacture was first noted.

George IV, whose liking for pietra dura was almost as marked and long lived as his love of Sèvres porcelain, acquired the cabinet in Paris in 1828 through his confectioner François Benois. It may first have been placed in the King's temporary apartments in St James's Palace, but was intended eventually for the rebuilt Buckingham Palace.



Dans le sujet de notre forum où cette commode est déjà présentée, l'ami Gouv' nous disait :

Gouverneur Morris a écrit:
Le panneau central a très vraisemblablement été enrichi de bronzes dorés après son acquisition par Georges IV, c'était une manie chez lui. Sa façon de les "moderniser" sans les dénaturer.

Ce meuble se trouve aujourd'hui dans la Green Drawing Room, à Buckingham Palace :

Image : Pinterest


Il est accompagné (à droite de l'image) d'un autre meuble décoré de marqueterie de pierres dures, que je poste tout de même ici, même s'il n'est pas de Martin Carlin, mais d'un autre ébéniste français célèbre : Louis-François Bellangé (1759-1827).
Sa conception est également plus tardive.



Cabinet
Louis-François Bellangé (cabinet maker)
France, 1820
Oak, ebony, hardstones, pewter, gilt bronze | 162.0 x 154.0 x 59.0 cm
Image : The Royal Collection Trust

Provenance :
This cabinet once belonged to the collector George Watson Taylor (1771-1841).
Acquired by George IV. Bought at the Watson-Taylor sale, Christie's, 28 May 1825 (lot 70) for £320 5s.

Description :

Square ebony and pietra dura cabinet with two doors; gilt bronze cornice, frieze with grotesque masks, fluted ionic columns with gilt bronze mounts. Doors and sides set with pietra dura panels depicting vases of flowers, birds and dwarfs, one pair playing musical instruments, the others duelling. On five gadrooned feet.
The carved and inlaid hardstone panels used in this cabinet date from both the seventeenth and the nineteenth century. The distinctive dwarfs at the base of each door are based on designs by Baccio del Bianco (1604-1654), director of the Grand Ducal Workshops in Florence, who specialised in figures of this type.

Louis-François Bellangé (1759-1827) was a French menuisier-ébéniste de curiosité who worked in Paris, the younger brother of famed ébéniste Pierre-Antoine Bellangé (1757-1827). He supplied furniture to Napoleon I, but also targeted the affluent British tourists who flocked to Paris after 1815.
Most of his work today is found in British collections.

Image : The Royal Collection Trust

Image : The Royal Collection Trust


A suivre....

Après les belles photos des collections anglaises et américaines, je passe à celle mise en ligne par le musée du Louvre.
Sans commentaire !  

Et toujours de Martin Carlin donc :


Secrétaire à abattant
Paris, vers 1780
Estampille sous la traverse gauche de la ceinture : M CARLIN (deux fois), accompagnée du poinçon JME.
Bâti de chêne ; placage d'ébène, bois de rose et d'amarante, bois fruitiers ; aventurine, mosaïque de marbres et pierres dures sur ardoise ; bronze doré, fer laqué en noir, marbre brocatelle d'Espagne
Image : RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / image RMN-GP

Présentation (extraits) :

Des mosaïques de remploi
Les quatre mosaïques de l'abattant représentent des paysages de bord de mer comprenant des constructions diverses, il s'agit probablement d'œuvres florentines du XVIIe siècle. Elles devaient orner d'anciens tiroirs comme semblent l'indiquer les trous (aujourd'hui bouchés) au centre de chacune d'elles.
Les deux mosaïques latérales, figurant chacune un vase de fleurs, proviennent sans doute elles aussi de meubles plus anciens. Quant aux panneaux d'aventurine ils sont vraisemblablement issus d'objets dépecés.

Ce secrétaire illustre un renouveau du goût pour les objets en pierres dures à la fin du XVIIIe siècle mais aussi la curiosité nouvelle pour la minéralogie.
Les marchands merciers qui eurent d'abord recours à la porcelaine pour plaquer certains meubles, en vinrent ensuite à utiliser des panneaux de pierres dures. Carlin laisse cependant peu de meubles décorés de cette façon : une commode dans les collections royales anglaises et une table, conservée au musée national du château de Versailles, ornée de marines proches de celles du Louvre.

Carlin et Daguerre
Si la forme du cabinet et le décor de mosaïques rappellent le mobilier du XVIIe siècle, les pieds fuselés, l'aventurine et le décor de bronze en font une œuvre typique de Martin Carlin. Cet ébéniste d'origine allemande travaillait dans le faubourg Saint-Antoine et fit toute sa carrière auprès des marchands merciers.
Il œuvra pour Poirier, les frères Darnault et Daguerre. Ce secrétaire est vraisemblablement une commande de Daguerre qui vendait, entre autres, des meubles et objets en pierres dures.
En 1791, le marchand mercier organisa à Londres une vente de meubles qu'il avait importés de Paris ; d'après les termes du catalogue, il se peut que le secrétaire du Louvre ait figuré à cette vente.
Néanmoins, un autre marchand mercier, Julliot, vendait lui aussi des meubles ornés de pierres dures.

* Source et infos complémentaires : Musée du Louvre - Notice secrétaire à abattant


Et conservée à Versailles :


Table de milieu à décor d'incrustations de pierres dures florentines
Martin Carlin (ébéniste)
Plaques attribuées à Florence, Galleria de' Lavori in Pietre Dure (fabricant)
Seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle
Image : RMN-Grand Palais (Château de Versailles) / Christian Jean / Jean Schormans

Historique :
Ancienne collection du duc de Brissac, inventoriée en 1792 dans la bibliothèque de son hôtel rue de Grenelle; saisie révolutionnaire ; Dépôt de Nesle ; Musée central des Arts ; palais consulaire des Tuileries ; mentionnée à Saint-Cloud dans le salon de la première dame d'honneur de l'Impératrice en 1804 et 1807, dans la salle du Trône en 1812 et dans le premier salon en 1824 ; placée au musée du Louvre en 1870 ; envoyée à Versailles le 22 mars 1888.


Détail du plateau, transcription en pietra-dura d'une mosaïque exécutée à Rome en 1616
Image : RMN-Grand Palais (Château de Versailles)