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Lot Essay
Roger van der Cruse, known as Lacroix, maître in 1755.
This elegant bonheur-du-jour, embellished with characteristc 'naif' marquetry of utensils and vases inspired by the borders of Chinese lacquer screens, is virtually identical to an example stamped 'RVLC', which was sold from the collection of Bernard Tapie, Drouot, Paris, 22 June 1995, lot 7. Besides Lacroix, this type of marquetry was popularised by the specialist marqueteur Charles Topino (maître in 1773) and Pierre Pioniez (maître in 1765).
Roger van der Cruse was born in 1728, the son of François van der Cruse, an ouvrier libre. His sisters Françoise-Marguerite, Marie-Marguerite and Anne-Michelle all married maîtres-ébénistes, namely Jean-François Oeben (and secondly Jean-Henri Riesener), Simon Oeben and Simon Guillaume, while he himself married the daughter of the ébéniste Mathieu Progain. Following Lacroix's election as maître-ébéniste in 1755, he took over his father's atelier in the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Antoine, opposite the rue Saint-Nicolas, where he lived until his death in 1799 (C. Roinet, Roger Vandercruse dit Lacroix, Paris 2000, pp. 15-23).
This elegant bonheur-du-jour, embellished with characteristc 'naif' marquetry of utensils and vases inspired by the borders of Chinese lacquer screens, is virtually identical to an example stamped 'RVLC', which was sold from the collection of Bernard Tapie, Drouot, Paris, 22 June 1995, lot 7. Besides Lacroix, this type of marquetry was popularised by the specialist marqueteur Charles Topino (maître in 1773) and Pierre Pioniez (maître in 1765).
Roger van der Cruse was born in 1728, the son of François van der Cruse, an ouvrier libre. His sisters Françoise-Marguerite, Marie-Marguerite and Anne-Michelle all married maîtres-ébénistes, namely Jean-François Oeben (and secondly Jean-Henri Riesener), Simon Oeben and Simon Guillaume, while he himself married the daughter of the ébéniste Mathieu Progain. Following Lacroix's election as maître-ébéniste in 1755, he took over his father's atelier in the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Antoine, opposite the rue Saint-Nicolas, where he lived until his death in 1799 (C. Roinet, Roger Vandercruse dit Lacroix, Paris 2000, pp. 15-23).