.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Claude-Charles Saunier, maître in 1752
This majestic and apparently unique table, spectacular and architecturally bold, is a masterpiece of the new Classical style of the 1750s and 1760s known as the goût grec, while its remarkable top of diaspro giallo reflects the passion among sophisticated amateurs of this period for rare and precious hardstones.
THE NEW STYLE
The return to Classical taste in France was promoted by an enlightened group of passionate connoisseurs, architects and artists who fell under the spell of Classical Antiquity in the 1750s. The group included amateurs such as Ange-Laurent Lalive de Jully, the comte de Caylus and Madame Geoffrin, the architects Charles de Wailly, Jean-François de Neufforge and Jean-Laurent Le Geay and designers such as Louis-Joseph Le Lorrain and Jean-Charles Delafosse. They exchanged their new ideas at Jacques-François Blondel’s Ecole des Arts in Paris, an energetic counterpart to the more conservative Académie Royale d’Architecture, as well as the French Academy in Rome, an inspirational training ground for this new generation of artists and designers. Spurred on by the exciting discoveries at Pompeii and Herculaneum, they created a striking new style which was every bit as revolutionary as the rise of Modernism in the early twentieth century. The comte de Caylus (1692-1765), a man of letters with a passion for antiquities, chose a Roman porphyry cenotaph from his collection, dating from the second century, to be placed on his tomb in the church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, directly linking this revival to the ancient sources that were soon to be reinterpreted. The commissions of the collector Ange-Laurent Lalive de Jully (1725-1779) are also of great importance. A financier with a passion for the arts, he commissioned a groundbreaking and celebrated set of furniture consisting of a desk and cartonnier, a large cabinet, an armchair, an inkwell, two tables with Roman marble tops, one of which was recently sold from the collection of Sydell Miller at Christie’s, New York, 10 June 2021, lot 111 ($846,000) and a remarkable cabinet to house his rare collection of shells, later broken up into a series of smaller cabinets, one of which was recently sold from the collection of Ann and Gordon Getty at Christie's, New York, 20 October 2022, lot 28 ($554,400). The impact of this avant-garde set of furniture was immense. A particular feature of furniture à la grecque, as featured on the table by Saunier offered here, was a striking use of ebony in combination with powerful, sculptural gilt bronzes, which directly echo the work of André-Charles Boulle, the great genius of the Louis XIV period, and it is no accident that many of the connoisseurly collectors of the 1750s and 1760s who championed the goût grec were also passionate collectors of Boulle, Lalive de Jully being a prime example.
THE TASTE FOR HARDSTONES
Similarly, the taste for precious and rare hardstones was paralleled in the reign of Louis XIV. The Sun King assembled an extraordinary collection of porphyry which was largely acquired in Rome, where throughout the seventeenth century most objects of re-shaped ancient porphyry were produced, the majority created from recently excavated columns. The taste for hardstones was given new impetus later in the eighteenth century, when a new generation of connoisseurs was inspired by the arts of Antiquity, being especially enchanted by ancient marbles. Foremost among these was Louis-Marie-Augustin, 5th duc d'Aumont (1709-1782), who oversaw the Menus-Plaisirs, where he established a workshop for cutting hardstones under the direction of the architect François-Joseph Bélanger (1744-1818) and employed the Italian stonecutter Augustin Bocciardi. The duc d'Aumont's interest in ancient and precious marbles had apparently been ignited by his purchase from the maréchal de Richelieu of two antique porphyry vases brought from Italy. His passion was shared by a number of his contemporaries, not least Marie-Antoinette herself, who was to become the proud owner of some of his rarest treasures, including the celebrated brûle parfum of diaspro rosso (of the same veining of jasper as the top on the table by Saunier offered here, but in red rather than yellow) in the Wallace Collection (inv. no. F292). None of the marbles from which the duc d'Aumont's objects were created had been mined since Antiquity, and it was only archaeological excavations that yielded these great prizes, gathered by the Romans from all corners of their vast Empire, particularly their North African provinces, where many of the richest stones originated. The introduction to the catalogue of the famous sale of his collection of 1782 notes M. le Duc d'Aumont, jaloux de donner le plus grand caractere à son Cabinet, a fait les plus grandes recherches pour se procurer à Rome et dans tout l'Italie les marbres les plus rares,...
Another famous sale of the period, that of Pierre-Paul-Louis Randon de Boisset in 1777, devoted separate sections to the various hardstones in his collection, such as porphyry, marbre serpentin antique, jaspe sanguin and agates.
CLAUDE-CHARLES SAUNIER
Established in the rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, like many of his contemporaries Saunier worked extensively for the marchands-merciers such as Daguerre, for whom he supplied a number of pieces to Lord Spencer for Althorp. His work for the marchands-merciers is also reflected in his frequent use of precious materials such as porcelain, Japanese lacquer (for instance the superb commode supplied to the duchesse de Mazarin, lot 73 in this sale) and tole, and it is highly probably that this striking and original table, with its remarkable top of yellow Sicilian jasper, was also a special commission from a marchand-mercier.
This majestic and apparently unique table, spectacular and architecturally bold, is a masterpiece of the new Classical style of the 1750s and 1760s known as the goût grec, while its remarkable top of diaspro giallo reflects the passion among sophisticated amateurs of this period for rare and precious hardstones.
THE NEW STYLE
The return to Classical taste in France was promoted by an enlightened group of passionate connoisseurs, architects and artists who fell under the spell of Classical Antiquity in the 1750s. The group included amateurs such as Ange-Laurent Lalive de Jully, the comte de Caylus and Madame Geoffrin, the architects Charles de Wailly, Jean-François de Neufforge and Jean-Laurent Le Geay and designers such as Louis-Joseph Le Lorrain and Jean-Charles Delafosse. They exchanged their new ideas at Jacques-François Blondel’s Ecole des Arts in Paris, an energetic counterpart to the more conservative Académie Royale d’Architecture, as well as the French Academy in Rome, an inspirational training ground for this new generation of artists and designers. Spurred on by the exciting discoveries at Pompeii and Herculaneum, they created a striking new style which was every bit as revolutionary as the rise of Modernism in the early twentieth century. The comte de Caylus (1692-1765), a man of letters with a passion for antiquities, chose a Roman porphyry cenotaph from his collection, dating from the second century, to be placed on his tomb in the church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, directly linking this revival to the ancient sources that were soon to be reinterpreted. The commissions of the collector Ange-Laurent Lalive de Jully (1725-1779) are also of great importance. A financier with a passion for the arts, he commissioned a groundbreaking and celebrated set of furniture consisting of a desk and cartonnier, a large cabinet, an armchair, an inkwell, two tables with Roman marble tops, one of which was recently sold from the collection of Sydell Miller at Christie’s, New York, 10 June 2021, lot 111 ($846,000) and a remarkable cabinet to house his rare collection of shells, later broken up into a series of smaller cabinets, one of which was recently sold from the collection of Ann and Gordon Getty at Christie's, New York, 20 October 2022, lot 28 ($554,400). The impact of this avant-garde set of furniture was immense. A particular feature of furniture à la grecque, as featured on the table by Saunier offered here, was a striking use of ebony in combination with powerful, sculptural gilt bronzes, which directly echo the work of André-Charles Boulle, the great genius of the Louis XIV period, and it is no accident that many of the connoisseurly collectors of the 1750s and 1760s who championed the goût grec were also passionate collectors of Boulle, Lalive de Jully being a prime example.
THE TASTE FOR HARDSTONES
Similarly, the taste for precious and rare hardstones was paralleled in the reign of Louis XIV. The Sun King assembled an extraordinary collection of porphyry which was largely acquired in Rome, where throughout the seventeenth century most objects of re-shaped ancient porphyry were produced, the majority created from recently excavated columns. The taste for hardstones was given new impetus later in the eighteenth century, when a new generation of connoisseurs was inspired by the arts of Antiquity, being especially enchanted by ancient marbles. Foremost among these was Louis-Marie-Augustin, 5th duc d'Aumont (1709-1782), who oversaw the Menus-Plaisirs, where he established a workshop for cutting hardstones under the direction of the architect François-Joseph Bélanger (1744-1818) and employed the Italian stonecutter Augustin Bocciardi. The duc d'Aumont's interest in ancient and precious marbles had apparently been ignited by his purchase from the maréchal de Richelieu of two antique porphyry vases brought from Italy. His passion was shared by a number of his contemporaries, not least Marie-Antoinette herself, who was to become the proud owner of some of his rarest treasures, including the celebrated brûle parfum of diaspro rosso (of the same veining of jasper as the top on the table by Saunier offered here, but in red rather than yellow) in the Wallace Collection (inv. no. F292). None of the marbles from which the duc d'Aumont's objects were created had been mined since Antiquity, and it was only archaeological excavations that yielded these great prizes, gathered by the Romans from all corners of their vast Empire, particularly their North African provinces, where many of the richest stones originated. The introduction to the catalogue of the famous sale of his collection of 1782 notes M. le Duc d'Aumont, jaloux de donner le plus grand caractere à son Cabinet, a fait les plus grandes recherches pour se procurer à Rome et dans tout l'Italie les marbres les plus rares,...
Another famous sale of the period, that of Pierre-Paul-Louis Randon de Boisset in 1777, devoted separate sections to the various hardstones in his collection, such as porphyry, marbre serpentin antique, jaspe sanguin and agates.
CLAUDE-CHARLES SAUNIER
Established in the rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, like many of his contemporaries Saunier worked extensively for the marchands-merciers such as Daguerre, for whom he supplied a number of pieces to Lord Spencer for Althorp. His work for the marchands-merciers is also reflected in his frequent use of precious materials such as porcelain, Japanese lacquer (for instance the superb commode supplied to the duchesse de Mazarin, lot 73 in this sale) and tole, and it is highly probably that this striking and original table, with its remarkable top of yellow Sicilian jasper, was also a special commission from a marchand-mercier.