.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The signature on the lock may refer to the little-known firm Souchet, established in the rue Moreau-Saint-Antoine from 1850.
This bureau plat is inspired by the celebrated prototype supplied to Mesdames at the château de Bellevue and now in the Louvre (illustrated in D. Alcouffe et al., Furniture Collections in the Louvre - I, Dijon, 1993, no.84, p.261). Stamped by both Martin Carlin (d.1785) and Gaspard Schneider (maître in 1786), who married the former's widow in January 1786, it was presumably unfinished at the time of Carlin's death and was completed by Schneider. It is first described in Madame Victoire's grand cabinet at Bellevue in March 1786:- Un bureau de laque noir, les pieds canelés, le dessus couvert de maroquin vert à vignettes dorées, avec ornemens de bronze ciselé et doré d'or moulu.
The Louvre prototype differs from the present example in that it is less elaborately mounted, the top does not have a lacquer surround to the leather writing-surface and the frieze has four distinct framed panels rather than three in a breakfronted format.
Alfred Beurdeley (1808-1882) is known to have copied this model in the 19th Century. A related example signed by Beurdeley is illustrated in D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Mobilier Français du XIXe Siècle, Paris, 1989, p.78.
The signature on the lock may refer to the little-known firm Souchet, established in the rue Moreau-Saint-Antoine from 1850.
The inscription KKU 903 in crayon to the underside of this bureau plat is in the same hand as that on several pieces formerly owned by the Rothschilds. These include the Riesener commode supplied to Louis XVI for Fontainebleau in 1778, which was sold from the Collection of the Barons Nathaniel and Albert von Rothschild at Christie's London, 8 July 1999, lot 201 (KKU 838); the BVRB commode from that same sale, lot 205 (KKU 888); the Dauphine's commode from Choisy-le-Roi, sold from the Riahi collection, Christie's New York, 2 November 2000, lot 20 (KKU 863); and the Carlin Sèvres porcelain-mounted secrétaire in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (KKU 859). Although the Inventory that these numbers relate to has not been traced, the close proximity in the numbers could perhaps point to a Rothschild provenance for this bureau plat.
This bureau plat is inspired by the celebrated prototype supplied to Mesdames at the château de Bellevue and now in the Louvre (illustrated in D. Alcouffe et al., Furniture Collections in the Louvre - I, Dijon, 1993, no.84, p.261). Stamped by both Martin Carlin (d.1785) and Gaspard Schneider (maître in 1786), who married the former's widow in January 1786, it was presumably unfinished at the time of Carlin's death and was completed by Schneider. It is first described in Madame Victoire's grand cabinet at Bellevue in March 1786:- Un bureau de laque noir, les pieds canelés, le dessus couvert de maroquin vert à vignettes dorées, avec ornemens de bronze ciselé et doré d'or moulu.
The Louvre prototype differs from the present example in that it is less elaborately mounted, the top does not have a lacquer surround to the leather writing-surface and the frieze has four distinct framed panels rather than three in a breakfronted format.
Alfred Beurdeley (1808-1882) is known to have copied this model in the 19th Century. A related example signed by Beurdeley is illustrated in D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Mobilier Français du XIXe Siècle, Paris, 1989, p.78.
The signature on the lock may refer to the little-known firm Souchet, established in the rue Moreau-Saint-Antoine from 1850.
The inscription KKU 903 in crayon to the underside of this bureau plat is in the same hand as that on several pieces formerly owned by the Rothschilds. These include the Riesener commode supplied to Louis XVI for Fontainebleau in 1778, which was sold from the Collection of the Barons Nathaniel and Albert von Rothschild at Christie's London, 8 July 1999, lot 201 (KKU 838); the BVRB commode from that same sale, lot 205 (KKU 888); the Dauphine's commode from Choisy-le-Roi, sold from the Riahi collection, Christie's New York, 2 November 2000, lot 20 (KKU 863); and the Carlin Sèvres porcelain-mounted secrétaire in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (KKU 859). Although the Inventory that these numbers relate to has not been traced, the close proximity in the numbers could perhaps point to a Rothschild provenance for this bureau plat.