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Lot Essay
Although it has not been possible to identify these chenets in the inventory drawn up following Madame de Pompadour's death in 1764,they may be referred to in a group of chenets from her Paris hôtel, the present day Elysée Palace:
Cinq feux garnis chacon de leur pelle, pincettes et tenailles du fer poly avec ornemens du cuivre doré d'or moulu
The neoclassic design of the chenets implies a date between 1760 and the Marquise's death in 1764. Payments made in 1765 following her death include sums due to the bronziers Caffieri and Pitoin. The small scale of the chenets implies that they were probably intended for a small, intimate room with a low ceiling. The allegorical reference to the sciences, astronomy and geography suggests they were made for a library or cabinet de travail.
The Marquise's furniture was sold following her death in 1764. Among the buyers were her heir and brother the marquis de Marigny as well as the duc de Choiseul-Praslin, a personal friend of hers.
César Gabriel de Choiseul (1719-1785), Minister of state and cousin of Louis XV's Prime Minister, was created duke in 1766. Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and later Ministre de la Marine, he owned the hôtel de Belle-Isle in Paris and the château of Vaux-le-Vicomte. He purchased at the Pompadour sale a Sèvres garniture now divided between the Louvre, Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu. His descendant Raynal de Choiseul-Praslin sold much of the furniture, including these chenets, inherited from his parents, in 1869.
Cinq feux garnis chacon de leur pelle, pincettes et tenailles du fer poly avec ornemens du cuivre doré d'or moulu
The neoclassic design of the chenets implies a date between 1760 and the Marquise's death in 1764. Payments made in 1765 following her death include sums due to the bronziers Caffieri and Pitoin. The small scale of the chenets implies that they were probably intended for a small, intimate room with a low ceiling. The allegorical reference to the sciences, astronomy and geography suggests they were made for a library or cabinet de travail.
The Marquise's furniture was sold following her death in 1764. Among the buyers were her heir and brother the marquis de Marigny as well as the duc de Choiseul-Praslin, a personal friend of hers.
César Gabriel de Choiseul (1719-1785), Minister of state and cousin of Louis XV's Prime Minister, was created duke in 1766. Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and later Ministre de la Marine, he owned the hôtel de Belle-Isle in Paris and the château of Vaux-le-Vicomte. He purchased at the Pompadour sale a Sèvres garniture now divided between the Louvre, Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu. His descendant Raynal de Choiseul-Praslin sold much of the furniture, including these chenets, inherited from his parents, in 1869.