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Lot Essay
Joseph Gengenbach dit Canabas, maître in 1766.
This elegant little étagère is conceived in the sober, unadorned taste of the late 18th Century known as the goût anglais, using simple functional forms undisturbed by gilt-bronze mounts and often based directly on English prototypes.
The fashionable goût anglais of the 1770s and '80s was promoted by Madame de Pompadour's brother, the Marquis de Marigny, who greatly admired the simple forms and plain beauty of English mahogany furniture. Not only was he buying restrained mahogany pieces through an agent in London, but he was also commissioning furniture in a similar vein from his favoured ébénistes, for example the well known set of mahogany chairs showing a strong English influence, which were supplied by Pierre Garnier for the the dining room of his hôtel in the Place des Victoires in 1778 (A. Gordon and M. Déchery, 'The Marquis de Marigny's Purchases of English Furniture and Objects', Furniture History Society Journal, (XXV), 1989, pp. 86-108).
This elegant little étagère is conceived in the sober, unadorned taste of the late 18th Century known as the goût anglais, using simple functional forms undisturbed by gilt-bronze mounts and often based directly on English prototypes.
The fashionable goût anglais of the 1770s and '80s was promoted by Madame de Pompadour's brother, the Marquis de Marigny, who greatly admired the simple forms and plain beauty of English mahogany furniture. Not only was he buying restrained mahogany pieces through an agent in London, but he was also commissioning furniture in a similar vein from his favoured ébénistes, for example the well known set of mahogany chairs showing a strong English influence, which were supplied by Pierre Garnier for the the dining room of his hôtel in the Place des Victoires in 1778 (A. Gordon and M. Déchery, 'The Marquis de Marigny's Purchases of English Furniture and Objects', Furniture History Society Journal, (XXV), 1989, pp. 86-108).