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Lot Essay
This magnificent table à la Bourgogne is a masterpiece of the German-born cabinet-maker Jean-Pierre Latz (c. 1691 - 1754). It combines fluid lines and finely chased mounts with exceptional marquetry panels of floral sprays and garden trophies, together with the intricate mechanism of a rising superstructure and folding reading rest. The exact derivation of the term à la Bourgogne is unclear but it may have referred to the young duc de Bourgogne (1751 - 1760), eldest of Louis XV's grandsons.
THE PROVENANCE
Louis-Jean-Marie de Bourbon, duc de Penthièvre, was the son of Louis-Alexandre-Marie, comte de Toulouse (the illegitimate son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan) and Marie-Victoire Sophie de Noailles, the Duchesse de Penthièvre.
The table offered here appears in an inventory drawn up following the death of the duc de Penthièvre in 1793 and features in the 9th apartement on the first floor at the château de Sceaux, described as follows:
Cabinet: une table faisant secretaire en marqueterie avec trophes de jardinage garnie de ses ornements et sabots de cuivre dor avec encrier, poudrier et portponge en argent, etc 425 livres.
This appartement consisted of two ante-chambers, a bedroom and the study, or cabinet, in which the Latz table was placed. The richness of the furnishings of these rooms suggest that they were either occupied by the duc himself, his daughter, the duchesse d'Orlèans, or his daughter-in-law, the princesse de Lamballe.
This table may also be identified as the example featuring in the inventory following the death of the duchesse de Penthièvre described as:
n. 801 un petit secrtaire de bois des Indes travaillé on fleurs portant deux pieds et demie de long garni d'ornements de cuivre dor en or moulu 200 livres.
After the death of the duc in 1793, his goods were seized and the majority then sold. In 1797, the duchesse d'Orlèans, sole heiress to the estate, was able to take possession of her inheritance before her exile in Spain, and rented, for a brief, period some rooms in Paris furnished with works of art from her father's collection which had been restituted to her.
JEAN-PIERRE LATZ
Born in Cologne in 1691, Latz moved to Paris in 1719 and in 1739 married Marie-Madeleine Seignet, daughter of a well-connected property developer. His business evidently prospered as by 1741 he was appointed ébèniste privilegi du roy, which enabled him to exercise his profession freely without entering the guild as a master. Like the renowned cabinet-maker Charles Cressent before him, Latz also contravened guild regulations by casting his own bronzes, which often enables unsigned pieces to be attributed to him on the basis of the bronzes. Latz's work is characterized by rich floral marquetry in dense clusters often punctuated by distinctive gourd-like seed pods, and also related to the work of Jean-Franois Oeben, with whom he is known to have collaborated. The charming Arcadian trophy of garden implements on the offered table appears to be unique in Latz's oeuvre, however. Its garlanded pastoral trophy, associated with the fertile Earth deity Ceres and emblematic of Summer, features above a bubbled and shell-scalloped cartouche that relates to designs by the artist Gilles de Marteau (d. 1776), as part of his Plusieurs Tropheés (published in Paris circa 1745).
Interestingly, very few pieces of furniture by Latz have an 18th century French provenance, making this table even rarer. The only other examples with such a provenance are all linked to the duc de Penthièvre (who was evidently Latz's most important French client): a pair of encoignures supplied to his Parisian residence, the hôtel de Toulouse (subsequently passing to his grandson Louis-Philippe in the château d'Eu and later sold from the collection of Akram Ojjeh, Christie's, Monaco, 11 December 1999, lot 40), and another pair of encoignures supplied to the duc de Penthiévre for the château d'Anet. Latz's German connections secured a number of important commissions to the courts of Dresden and Berlin, while he also supplied furniture to Madame Infante, eldest daughter of Louis XV, for her palace at Colorno following her marriage to the Duke of Parma.
Only two other tables à la Bourgogne by Latz appear to be recorded: one, a less elaborate example in the James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, also stamped by Denis Genty (illustrated in G. de Bellaigue, Catalogue; Furniture and Gilt Bronzes, Fribourg, 1974, vol. 1, no. 82. 394 - 397), and another in a private English collection.
THE PROVENANCE
Louis-Jean-Marie de Bourbon, duc de Penthièvre, was the son of Louis-Alexandre-Marie, comte de Toulouse (the illegitimate son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan) and Marie-Victoire Sophie de Noailles, the Duchesse de Penthièvre.
The table offered here appears in an inventory drawn up following the death of the duc de Penthièvre in 1793 and features in the 9th apartement on the first floor at the château de Sceaux, described as follows:
Cabinet: une table faisant secretaire en marqueterie avec trophes de jardinage garnie de ses ornements et sabots de cuivre dor avec encrier, poudrier et portponge en argent, etc 425 livres.
This appartement consisted of two ante-chambers, a bedroom and the study, or cabinet, in which the Latz table was placed. The richness of the furnishings of these rooms suggest that they were either occupied by the duc himself, his daughter, the duchesse d'Orlèans, or his daughter-in-law, the princesse de Lamballe.
This table may also be identified as the example featuring in the inventory following the death of the duchesse de Penthièvre described as:
n. 801 un petit secrtaire de bois des Indes travaillé on fleurs portant deux pieds et demie de long garni d'ornements de cuivre dor en or moulu 200 livres.
After the death of the duc in 1793, his goods were seized and the majority then sold. In 1797, the duchesse d'Orlèans, sole heiress to the estate, was able to take possession of her inheritance before her exile in Spain, and rented, for a brief, period some rooms in Paris furnished with works of art from her father's collection which had been restituted to her.
JEAN-PIERRE LATZ
Born in Cologne in 1691, Latz moved to Paris in 1719 and in 1739 married Marie-Madeleine Seignet, daughter of a well-connected property developer. His business evidently prospered as by 1741 he was appointed ébèniste privilegi du roy, which enabled him to exercise his profession freely without entering the guild as a master. Like the renowned cabinet-maker Charles Cressent before him, Latz also contravened guild regulations by casting his own bronzes, which often enables unsigned pieces to be attributed to him on the basis of the bronzes. Latz's work is characterized by rich floral marquetry in dense clusters often punctuated by distinctive gourd-like seed pods, and also related to the work of Jean-Franois Oeben, with whom he is known to have collaborated. The charming Arcadian trophy of garden implements on the offered table appears to be unique in Latz's oeuvre, however. Its garlanded pastoral trophy, associated with the fertile Earth deity Ceres and emblematic of Summer, features above a bubbled and shell-scalloped cartouche that relates to designs by the artist Gilles de Marteau (d. 1776), as part of his Plusieurs Tropheés (published in Paris circa 1745).
Interestingly, very few pieces of furniture by Latz have an 18th century French provenance, making this table even rarer. The only other examples with such a provenance are all linked to the duc de Penthièvre (who was evidently Latz's most important French client): a pair of encoignures supplied to his Parisian residence, the hôtel de Toulouse (subsequently passing to his grandson Louis-Philippe in the château d'Eu and later sold from the collection of Akram Ojjeh, Christie's, Monaco, 11 December 1999, lot 40), and another pair of encoignures supplied to the duc de Penthiévre for the château d'Anet. Latz's German connections secured a number of important commissions to the courts of Dresden and Berlin, while he also supplied furniture to Madame Infante, eldest daughter of Louis XV, for her palace at Colorno following her marriage to the Duke of Parma.
Only two other tables à la Bourgogne by Latz appear to be recorded: one, a less elaborate example in the James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, also stamped by Denis Genty (illustrated in G. de Bellaigue, Catalogue; Furniture and Gilt Bronzes, Fribourg, 1974, vol. 1, no. 82. 394 - 397), and another in a private English collection.