Lot Essay
This ebony library-cabinet or armoire à dôme with sculpture - pedestal cornice is designed in the Louis XIV 'antique' manner. Embellished with golden bas-reliefs and tortoiseshell inlaid with a ribbon-tied filigree of Roman foliage, it owes its form to the designs of the ébéniste du roi André-Charles Boulle, such as those in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris for an armoire in the Louvre (D. Alcouffe et.al., Furniture Collections in the Louvre, Dijon, 1993, vol. 1, no. 19, pp. 70-9).
This armoire forms the pair to that en contre-partie sold from the Armaillé Collection, 6 June 1890, lot 154 and is almost en suite with that illustrated with later feet in T. Strange, French Interiors, Furniture, Decoration, Woodwork and Allied Arts, London, 1950, p. 144. They belong to a distinctive group of armoires, all executed in the early 18th Century, comprising:
- One from the collection of Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, Partridge, Exhibition Catalogue, 1996, no. 28.
- Another acquired by Baron Meyer Amschel de Rothschild for Mentmore Towers, Buckinghamshire and sold by the Earl of Rosebery, Sotheby's House Sale, 19 May 1977, lot 495 and consequently at Sotheby's New York, 22 May 1993, lot 224.
- Another, exhibited by B.B.Steinitz at the Biennale des Antiquaires, Paris, 1986.
The ornament of the apron and the design of the marquetry of this armoire is closely related to the oeuvre of the ébéniste Nicolas Sageot, which was discussed by Pierre Grand in 'Le Mobilier Boulle et les ateliers de l'époque', L'Estampille/L'Objet d'Art, February, 1993, pp.48-70. Indeed, the distinctive shaped apron is shared with the bureau mazarin by Sageot conserved in the Royal Palace at Stockholm (inv. H.G.K. 215, ibid., fig. 2), aswell as on a commode in the Wallace Collection (F39).
On the 26 July 1720 Sageot sold 16,000 livres of furniture to the marchand-mercier Léonard Prieur, amongst which were several 'armoires à dôme' in brass-inlaid tortoiseshell, valued between 400 and 1000 livres
The identical satyr-mask mount features on a George III commode discussed in L. Wood, Catalogue of Commodes, London, 1994, No. 14
This armoire forms the pair to that en contre-partie sold from the Armaillé Collection, 6 June 1890, lot 154 and is almost en suite with that illustrated with later feet in T. Strange, French Interiors, Furniture, Decoration, Woodwork and Allied Arts, London, 1950, p. 144. They belong to a distinctive group of armoires, all executed in the early 18th Century, comprising:
- One from the collection of Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, Partridge, Exhibition Catalogue, 1996, no. 28.
- Another acquired by Baron Meyer Amschel de Rothschild for Mentmore Towers, Buckinghamshire and sold by the Earl of Rosebery, Sotheby's House Sale, 19 May 1977, lot 495 and consequently at Sotheby's New York, 22 May 1993, lot 224.
- Another, exhibited by B.B.Steinitz at the Biennale des Antiquaires, Paris, 1986.
The ornament of the apron and the design of the marquetry of this armoire is closely related to the oeuvre of the ébéniste Nicolas Sageot, which was discussed by Pierre Grand in 'Le Mobilier Boulle et les ateliers de l'époque', L'Estampille/L'Objet d'Art, February, 1993, pp.48-70. Indeed, the distinctive shaped apron is shared with the bureau mazarin by Sageot conserved in the Royal Palace at Stockholm (inv. H.G.K. 215, ibid., fig. 2), aswell as on a commode in the Wallace Collection (F39).
On the 26 July 1720 Sageot sold 16,000 livres of furniture to the marchand-mercier Léonard Prieur, amongst which were several 'armoires à dôme' in brass-inlaid tortoiseshell, valued between 400 and 1000 livres
The identical satyr-mask mount features on a George III commode discussed in L. Wood, Catalogue of Commodes, London, 1994, No. 14