Lot Essay
Pierre Roussel, maître in 1745.
The ébéniste Pierre Roussel I (1723-1782) worked at 'L'image de Saint Pierre', rue de Charenton in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. He enjoyed a long and succesful career, numbering the prince de Condé amongst his most significant patrons, for whom he supplied furniture for the Palais Bourbon and Chantilly. An inventory following Roussel's death throws light on the large scale of his activities, with three workshops, a shop and a large stock, including fifty commodes, several of which were 'en façon de lac'.
The lacquer was almost certainly used from Chinese-Export cabinets or screens, its distinctive incised decoration often including vases of flowers and everyday utensils, as well as landscapes and courtly scenes.
These encoignures would presumably have originally been supplied en suite with a matching bombé lacquer commode, One such example, formerly in the collection of the Earls of Lonsdale at Lowther Castle, Cumberland, also passed through the hands of Raymond Kraemer and is now in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, whilst a further example is illustrated in T. Wolvesperges, Le Meuble en Laque au XVIIIe. Siècle, Paris, 2000, p. 304, fig. 168.
The ébéniste Pierre Roussel I (1723-1782) worked at 'L'image de Saint Pierre', rue de Charenton in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. He enjoyed a long and succesful career, numbering the prince de Condé amongst his most significant patrons, for whom he supplied furniture for the Palais Bourbon and Chantilly. An inventory following Roussel's death throws light on the large scale of his activities, with three workshops, a shop and a large stock, including fifty commodes, several of which were 'en façon de lac'.
The lacquer was almost certainly used from Chinese-Export cabinets or screens, its distinctive incised decoration often including vases of flowers and everyday utensils, as well as landscapes and courtly scenes.
These encoignures would presumably have originally been supplied en suite with a matching bombé lacquer commode, One such example, formerly in the collection of the Earls of Lonsdale at Lowther Castle, Cumberland, also passed through the hands of Raymond Kraemer and is now in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, whilst a further example is illustrated in T. Wolvesperges, Le Meuble en Laque au XVIIIe. Siècle, Paris, 2000, p. 304, fig. 168.