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Lot Essay
The Marchand-Fondeur Quentin-Claude Pitoin
These chenets can be identified with those delivered at a cost of 2800 livres on 11 May 1771 by Quentin-Claude Pitoin for the chambre coucher of the comtesse de Provence at the chteau de Versailles. In the journal du garde-meuble, they are described as:
Pitoin 11 May 1771
Livr par le Sr Pitoin
Pour servir dans la chambre coucher de Madame la Comtesse de Provence au chteau de Versailles
Un fort feu en vase et recouvrement de bronze dor d'or moulu de 20 pouces de profondeur. Le pidestal quarr orn sur la face d'un panneaux de mozaiques et au-dessus un mdaillon avec deux branches de laurier qui tombent perpendiculairement, le vase pos dessus orn d'une tte de mascaron d'o sort de la bouche deux guirlandes de feuilles de laurier qui passent de chaque ct des pidestaux en forme de guaine orn de cannelures sur les faces, de feuilles d'eau et graines. Sur les pidestaux sont poss deux vazes orns de cannelures creuses et gaudrons avec anses, le tout termin par des pommes des (!) La grille quatre branches avec pelle, pincettes et tenailles boutons dorz (Archives Nationales, 0'3319, fol. 54, verso)
The same model was supplied to the garde-meuble in 1773 for the comtesse d'Artois' appartements at Versailles (S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, p. 359, pl. 227).
In 1775, the popularity of this model was further underlined when Pitoin, doreur du Roi (d.1777) delivered two close variants, with vines replacing the laurel swags, one for the appartement du Roi at Versailles on 1 December 1775, the other for the use of Gaspard Mose de Fontanieu, garde-gnral des meubles de la Couronne, each at the enormous cost of 6000 livres.
Of this ' recouvrement' model, a pair of chenets are at the chteau de Versailles (inv. V 4478). Recorded in the Mobilier National in the 19th Century, one has a poorly engraved inscription 'Dambrire ce 25 Novembre 1775'. Previously considered to be the mark of the family of Parisian marchand-merciers of the same name, the signature is in fact that of Jean-Antoine Dambrire. Born in 1754, the son of Antoine Dambrire, contrleur de la maison du Roi and nephew of the marchand-mercier Pierre-Joseph Mayeux, Dambrire appears to have worked as compagnon to a fondeur-ciseleur working for Pitoin. Certainly the signature is much more logically interpreted as that of a young craftsman (Dambrire was just twenty-one in 1775) than as the mark of a fondeur attempting to establish the paternit of a model.
A further pair of chenets from the same atelier, with minor variants, was ordered by the duchesse d'Enville for the salon of the chteau de la Roche-Guyon circa 1770 (sold at Sotheby's Monaco, 6 December 1987, lot 105).
A final pair of chenets appeared in the Bergeret sale on 22 April 1786, no. 407.
At his death in 1777, Pitoin employed the bronziers Louis-Gabriel Feloix, Nicolas Henry, Bernard Douet, Louis Agy and Nicolas France, and any one of the above may have been responsible for the execution of this model.
The distinctive vase crowns the stretcher of a pair of Boulle marriage coffers in the Wallace Collection (P. Hughes, The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Furniture, London, 1996, pp. 684-690, cat. 146 (F47-8)).
These chenets can be identified with those delivered at a cost of 2800 livres on 11 May 1771 by Quentin-Claude Pitoin for the chambre coucher of the comtesse de Provence at the chteau de Versailles. In the journal du garde-meuble, they are described as:
Pitoin 11 May 1771
Livr par le Sr Pitoin
Pour servir dans la chambre coucher de Madame la Comtesse de Provence au chteau de Versailles
Un fort feu en vase et recouvrement de bronze dor d'or moulu de 20 pouces de profondeur. Le pidestal quarr orn sur la face d'un panneaux de mozaiques et au-dessus un mdaillon avec deux branches de laurier qui tombent perpendiculairement, le vase pos dessus orn d'une tte de mascaron d'o sort de la bouche deux guirlandes de feuilles de laurier qui passent de chaque ct des pidestaux en forme de guaine orn de cannelures sur les faces, de feuilles d'eau et graines. Sur les pidestaux sont poss deux vazes orns de cannelures creuses et gaudrons avec anses, le tout termin par des pommes des (!) La grille quatre branches avec pelle, pincettes et tenailles boutons dorz (Archives Nationales, 0'3319, fol. 54, verso)
The same model was supplied to the garde-meuble in 1773 for the comtesse d'Artois' appartements at Versailles (S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, p. 359, pl. 227).
In 1775, the popularity of this model was further underlined when Pitoin, doreur du Roi (d.1777) delivered two close variants, with vines replacing the laurel swags, one for the appartement du Roi at Versailles on 1 December 1775, the other for the use of Gaspard Mose de Fontanieu, garde-gnral des meubles de la Couronne, each at the enormous cost of 6000 livres.
Of this ' recouvrement' model, a pair of chenets are at the chteau de Versailles (inv. V 4478). Recorded in the Mobilier National in the 19th Century, one has a poorly engraved inscription 'Dambrire ce 25 Novembre 1775'. Previously considered to be the mark of the family of Parisian marchand-merciers of the same name, the signature is in fact that of Jean-Antoine Dambrire. Born in 1754, the son of Antoine Dambrire, contrleur de la maison du Roi and nephew of the marchand-mercier Pierre-Joseph Mayeux, Dambrire appears to have worked as compagnon to a fondeur-ciseleur working for Pitoin. Certainly the signature is much more logically interpreted as that of a young craftsman (Dambrire was just twenty-one in 1775) than as the mark of a fondeur attempting to establish the paternit of a model.
A further pair of chenets from the same atelier, with minor variants, was ordered by the duchesse d'Enville for the salon of the chteau de la Roche-Guyon circa 1770 (sold at Sotheby's Monaco, 6 December 1987, lot 105).
A final pair of chenets appeared in the Bergeret sale on 22 April 1786, no. 407.
At his death in 1777, Pitoin employed the bronziers Louis-Gabriel Feloix, Nicolas Henry, Bernard Douet, Louis Agy and Nicolas France, and any one of the above may have been responsible for the execution of this model.
The distinctive vase crowns the stretcher of a pair of Boulle marriage coffers in the Wallace Collection (P. Hughes, The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Furniture, London, 1996, pp. 684-690, cat. 146 (F47-8)).