Lot Essay
Jean-Henri Riesener, ébéniste du Roi, maître in 1768.
This toilette de campagne or coiffeuse is almost identical to that delivered by Jean-Henri Riesener for Marie-Antoinette at Versailles on 3rd February 1784. Exhibited today in the chambre à coucher of the 'petit appartement de La Souveraine' at Versailles, it was supplied at a cost of 480 livres to the garde-meuble de la Couronne. This high price was justified by the extensive and finely chased ormolu mounts employed, which are also displayed on the Espirito Santo coiffeuse. While unmounted walnut coiffeuses, stained to simulate mahogany, were supplied at a cost of 120 livres, the more sophisticated examples in mahogany cost 240 livres. Interestingly the inventory of the marchand Rocheux in 1820 records
'une toilette de Riesener en bois d'acajou formant bureau'
A coiffeuse of closely related design but with trellis parquetry was further supplied in 1784 by Riesener for Marie-Antoinette's appartement at the Tuileries, and this is now in the Petit Trianon. Another example of this latter model was almost certainly acquired by Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild for Mentmore Towers, Buckinghamshire (sold by the Earl of Rosebery, Sotheby's house sale, 19 May 1977, lot 444).
This toilette de campagne or coiffeuse is almost identical to that delivered by Jean-Henri Riesener for Marie-Antoinette at Versailles on 3rd February 1784. Exhibited today in the chambre à coucher of the 'petit appartement de La Souveraine' at Versailles, it was supplied at a cost of 480 livres to the garde-meuble de la Couronne. This high price was justified by the extensive and finely chased ormolu mounts employed, which are also displayed on the Espirito Santo coiffeuse. While unmounted walnut coiffeuses, stained to simulate mahogany, were supplied at a cost of 120 livres, the more sophisticated examples in mahogany cost 240 livres. Interestingly the inventory of the marchand Rocheux in 1820 records
'une toilette de Riesener en bois d'acajou formant bureau'
A coiffeuse of closely related design but with trellis parquetry was further supplied in 1784 by Riesener for Marie-Antoinette's appartement at the Tuileries, and this is now in the Petit Trianon. Another example of this latter model was almost certainly acquired by Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild for Mentmore Towers, Buckinghamshire (sold by the Earl of Rosebery, Sotheby's house sale, 19 May 1977, lot 444).