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Lot Essay
Jean-François Leleu, maître in 1764.
Presumably originally one of a pair - a hypothesis supported by the numberings on the carcase - this secretaire clearly reflects the often overlooked survival of Louis XVI taste beyond the Revolution and throughout the 1790s.
This taste is particularly associated with Queen Hortense, who was married to Napoleon's brother Louis, King of Holland. A watercolour of her tented boudoir, in the rue Cerruti, circa 1811, shows an almost identical pair of secretaires/jewel cabinets acquired by Queen Hortense circa 1798, but probably made between 1789-97, these are now at Versailles. They were supplied en suite with a further bookcase by Weisweiler, which is now at Arenenburg, Switzerland, where the Queen was exiled after Napoleon's fall (illustrated in P. Thornton, Authentic Decor The Domestic Interior 1620-1920, London, 1993, pp.194-195).
Leleu retired in the early 1780s, handing the business on to his son-in-law Stadler. Having examined the secretaire with its mounts taken off, this secretaire was clearly conceived with and veneered around this plaque at the time of construction. The fact that a burr-wood has been chosen as a veneer points to a date in the later 1780s or 1790s, so it is possible that the carcase itself had remained unfinished by Leleu. Certainly the mounts, porcelain plaque, veneer and overall form of the secretaire clearly belong to the creative and commercial collaboration of the marchand mercier Dominique Daguerre and his chosen ébéniste Adam Weisweiler.
Two further closely related secretaires, except with bas reliefs in gilt-bronze, are conserved in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, no.39-415 a-b.
THE ROTHSCHILD INVENTORY MARK
The distinctive Rothschild inventory mark has traditionally been associated with pieces from the collection of Baron Alphonse de Rothschild's hôtel in Paris. This same mark featured on the Marie-Josephe de Saxe commode sold from the Riahi Collection, Christie's New York, 2 November 2000, lot 20, which had been inherited by Baron Edouard de Rothschild, as well as on the suite of Louis XVI lacquer furniture also supplied to Queen Hortense and acquired by Alphonse de Rothschild, sold from the Ojjeh Collection, Christie's Monaco, 11-12 December 1999, lot 35.
However, in view of the conclusive 1956 English Rothschild provenance for this sécrétaire, the traditional association with the Parisian Rothschild's for this distinctive inventory mark is laid open to question; unless of course it was a gift from the French Rothschilds to Lady Sybil Grant? This latter hypothesis gains some credibility through the fact that none of the other Mentmore Rothschild furniture is known to be marked in this way.
MENTMORE
The art collections at Mentmore were among the most outstanding of their kind anywhere in the world, prompting Lady Eastlake to comment: 'I do not believe that the Medici were ever so lodged at the height of their glory'. Mentmore was built between 1852 and 1854 by Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild, who needed a house near to London and in close proximity to other Rothschild homes at Tring, Ascot, Aston Clinton and later Waddesdon and Halton House. The plans for the mansion imitated Wollaton Hall in Nottingham and were drawn up by the gardener turned architect Joseph Paxton, celebrated for his Crystal Palace, completed the year earlier. Sumptuously furnished with extraordinary works of art in every field, on his death in 1874, Baron Mayer left Mentmore and a fortune of some £2,000,000 to his daughter, Hannah de Rothschild. Four years later Hannah married Archibald Philip, 5th Earl of Rosebery, who added considerably to the collections assembled by his father-in-law and it remained intact until the tragic dispersal of the contents in 1977.
Presumably originally one of a pair - a hypothesis supported by the numberings on the carcase - this secretaire clearly reflects the often overlooked survival of Louis XVI taste beyond the Revolution and throughout the 1790s.
This taste is particularly associated with Queen Hortense, who was married to Napoleon's brother Louis, King of Holland. A watercolour of her tented boudoir, in the rue Cerruti, circa 1811, shows an almost identical pair of secretaires/jewel cabinets acquired by Queen Hortense circa 1798, but probably made between 1789-97, these are now at Versailles. They were supplied en suite with a further bookcase by Weisweiler, which is now at Arenenburg, Switzerland, where the Queen was exiled after Napoleon's fall (illustrated in P. Thornton, Authentic Decor The Domestic Interior 1620-1920, London, 1993, pp.194-195).
Leleu retired in the early 1780s, handing the business on to his son-in-law Stadler. Having examined the secretaire with its mounts taken off, this secretaire was clearly conceived with and veneered around this plaque at the time of construction. The fact that a burr-wood has been chosen as a veneer points to a date in the later 1780s or 1790s, so it is possible that the carcase itself had remained unfinished by Leleu. Certainly the mounts, porcelain plaque, veneer and overall form of the secretaire clearly belong to the creative and commercial collaboration of the marchand mercier Dominique Daguerre and his chosen ébéniste Adam Weisweiler.
Two further closely related secretaires, except with bas reliefs in gilt-bronze, are conserved in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, no.39-415 a-b.
THE ROTHSCHILD INVENTORY MARK
The distinctive Rothschild inventory mark has traditionally been associated with pieces from the collection of Baron Alphonse de Rothschild's hôtel in Paris. This same mark featured on the Marie-Josephe de Saxe commode sold from the Riahi Collection, Christie's New York, 2 November 2000, lot 20, which had been inherited by Baron Edouard de Rothschild, as well as on the suite of Louis XVI lacquer furniture also supplied to Queen Hortense and acquired by Alphonse de Rothschild, sold from the Ojjeh Collection, Christie's Monaco, 11-12 December 1999, lot 35.
However, in view of the conclusive 1956 English Rothschild provenance for this sécrétaire, the traditional association with the Parisian Rothschild's for this distinctive inventory mark is laid open to question; unless of course it was a gift from the French Rothschilds to Lady Sybil Grant? This latter hypothesis gains some credibility through the fact that none of the other Mentmore Rothschild furniture is known to be marked in this way.
MENTMORE
The art collections at Mentmore were among the most outstanding of their kind anywhere in the world, prompting Lady Eastlake to comment: 'I do not believe that the Medici were ever so lodged at the height of their glory'. Mentmore was built between 1852 and 1854 by Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild, who needed a house near to London and in close proximity to other Rothschild homes at Tring, Ascot, Aston Clinton and later Waddesdon and Halton House. The plans for the mansion imitated Wollaton Hall in Nottingham and were drawn up by the gardener turned architect Joseph Paxton, celebrated for his Crystal Palace, completed the year earlier. Sumptuously furnished with extraordinary works of art in every field, on his death in 1874, Baron Mayer left Mentmore and a fortune of some £2,000,000 to his daughter, Hannah de Rothschild. Four years later Hannah married Archibald Philip, 5th Earl of Rosebery, who added considerably to the collections assembled by his father-in-law and it remained intact until the tragic dispersal of the contents in 1977.