BY HUOT FILS, CIRCA 1795

Steel, with its preternatural strength and the mysterious, alchemical process involved in creating it, was a material of magical fascination to enlightened amateurs and connoisseurs in the 18th century. Few pieces of furniture made of polished steel have survived from that period, both because it was considered a novelty at the time and the preserve of the communauté des maîtres serruriers, but also because the material was difficult and complicated to work effectively, ruling out any form of mass production thereby greatly increasing the costs of manufacture. Although Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon (1707-1788), established a foundry in Montbard between 1768 and 1772, it was not until the end of the century that production in France was increased sufficiently to enable furniture in steel to be manufactured in greater numbers and not just be an elite, luxury production. The Directoire and Empire period saw a tremendous vogue for steel furniture, particularly for officers campaigning in the Napoleonic wars as steel beds were considered to be far more hygienic than wooden ones, while the simplicity and strength of steel was in keeping with the military, masculine aesthetic of the period. The elegant gueridon offered here, which was probably originally used as a lavabo, is signed by the tantalizingly unrecorded Parisian maker Huot, and features a particularly sophisticated brass inlay in combination with the steel body.