OF LOUIS XV STYLE, 19TH CENTURY

These chenets are conceived in the picturesque Chinese manner, with a gardener and his companion perched on balustrades. The pattern is thought to have been invented for Madame de Pompadour, and a pair from her apartments at the château de Bellevue is now in the Louvre (see Dreyfus, Musée du Louvre: Les Objets d'Art du XVIII Siecle: Epoque Louis XV, Paris, n.d., fig.3). A 'model de garniture de grill representant un chinois et une chinoise' is listed in the 1755 inventory of the celebrated bronzier Jacques Caffieri (d.1755) (see E. Molinier, Le Mobilier Francais du XVIIe et du XVIIIe Siècle, c. 1900, p.23.), and the Livre Journal of the marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux lists the purchases of Mme la Marquise de la Ferrière on 23 August 1756, which included 'Un petit feu doré composé de figures Chinoises avec ses garniture de pelles et pincettes, 120L', which may refer to chenets of this model.