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Lot Essay
Adam Weisweiler, matre in 1778
Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Vand fils, painter and gilder, recorded at Svres 1779-1800.
DAGUERRE'S 'TABLE A DESSUS DE PORCELAINE RONDE'
Designed in the lighter, freer style of the mid-1780's, with its casually-strewn summer flowers, this 'pittoresque' table en chiffonnire corresponds almost exactly in form to a water-colour drawing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (gift of Raphael Esmerian, 59.611.8, illustrated in F.J.B. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection, New York, 1966, vol.1, p.284). Attributed to Richard de Lalonde (flourished 1788-1806) and inscribed Jolie table a dessus de porcelaine ronde le fond du bois est gris les ornemens dors au mat le plateau qui est entre les pieds est en Beau Verny assortie a la porcelaine, this drawing was one of ten provided by the marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre to Duke Albert of Sachsen-Teschen and his wife Maria-Christina. As Parker (et al., The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, May, 1960, p .281) has convincingly argued, the highly finished character of these drawings suggests that they were made as 'sales material' for the dealers' clients rather than as working designs for an bniste.
Joint Governors of the Low Countries between 1780-92, the Sachsen-Teschen's commissioned these furnishings for the Palace at Laeken, near Brussels, which was constructed for them between 1780-5. As brother-in-law and sister of Marie-Antoinette, they were undoubtedly familiar with the prevailing Parisian fashion for porcelain-mounted furniture, and indeed eight of these ten watercolour-drawings - subsequently recorded in the possession of Charles-Joseph, Prince de Ligne (1755-1814) - depicted porcelain-mounted furniture.
DOMINIQUE DAGUERRE
The heir to Simon-Philippe Poirier's atelier, Dominique Daguerre specialised in supplying objets de luxe to the French Court and, increasingly during the 1780's, to the English nobility. Based in the rue St. Honor, as his trade label reveals he Tient Magafin de Porcelaines, Bronzes, Ebnisterie, Glaces, Curiosits, & autres Marshandises, and in the 1780's he even opened a shop in Piccadilly, London to supply the Prince of Wales and his circle, including the Duke of Bedford and Earl Spencer.
Interestingly, Christie's held two sales, the first (anonymous but almost certainly Daguerre's stock) on 15-17 March 1790 and the second, on 25 March 1791, entitled Superb Articles in French Or-Moulu...Imported from Paris by Mons. Daguerre. These clearly demonstrate both the enduring popularity of porcelain-mounted furniture and Daguerre's attempts to dominate the English market. No less than three tables of this general form are included. In the first sale, lot 84 was described as A ditto oval work table, with feve porcelain top or moulu border and mountings, whilst the second day saw A round ditto with porcelaine top, beautifully painted with a bafket of flowers, arabefque border, &c. and tripod ftand of or-moulu, as lot 78; more intriguingly the second sale listed lot 39 as A lady's work table with porcelane and or-moulu mountings, which was bought by a Ld.C (?).
Bayham Abbey was rebuilt by John, 3rd Marquess Camden to designs by the architect David Brandon (d.1879), following his marriage in 1866 to Lady Clementine Spencer-Churchill, daughter of the 6th Duke of Marlborough. Whilst it is possible that the Alexander table was purchased at this time, it could equally well have been bought by either of their forebears in the late 18th Century.
The unusual confronting crescent moon border of the frieze is reminiscent of the fashion for furniture and objects ' la Turque' in the late 1760's. A taste particularly admired by Madame du Barry and her circle, related crescent's featured on the pair of Svres bleu celeste limaons supplied to her by Poirier for Louveciennes on 4 September 1770 (probably those sold by the Marquess of Cholmondeley, Works of Art from Houghton, Christie's London, 8 December 1994, lot 13).
WEISWEILER AND CARLIN
A form traditionally associated with Martin Carlin, the newly-discovered stamp on the Alexander table enlarges Weisweiler's documented oeuvre and further underlines the close collaboration between marchand-mercier and bniste. A table of identical form and mounts, but with a Svres plaque only to the top and a tle peinte panel in imitation to the undertier, also mistakenly given to Carlin by Watson (op.cit) but actually stamped by Weisweiler, was sold from the collection of the late Ren Fribourg, Sotheby's London, 28 June 1963, lot 190 (as unstamped). A further table with apparently identically-painted Svres plaques but with a mahogany frame, was sold anonymously at Christie's London, 4 May 1939, lot 108, and a final example, also apparently unstamped, with a Svres porcelain plaque only to the top, was bequeathed by Alfred de Rothschild to the Rt. Hon. Almina, Countess of Carnarvon and sold at Christie's London, 19-21 May 1925, lot 297.
Carlin also executed tables of identical form, which were no doubt also supplied through Daguerre, as is illustrated by the Japanese lacquer-mounted table in the Wrightsman Collection (Watson, op.cit., no.143, pp.284-6). Moreover, he also executed a small group of tables of very similar design, but with trellis-parquetry, plainer mounts and a single porcelain plaque, such as that supplied to the Grand-Duchess Maria-Feodorovna for Pavlosk Palace in 1782 (sold anonymously at Christie's Geneva, 8 May 1973, lot 61), as well as that probably acquired by Francis Gilson Shepheard (d.1807) and sold by the Trustees of the late Nicholas Meynell, Christie's London, 9 June 1994, lot 67. Interestingly, this latter table, whose Svres plaque bore the date letter for 1782, was painted with almost identical summer flowers by Jean-Jacques-Pierre le jeune, who worked at Svres from 1767-1800.
Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Vand fils, painter and gilder, recorded at Svres 1779-1800.
DAGUERRE'S 'TABLE A DESSUS DE PORCELAINE RONDE'
Designed in the lighter, freer style of the mid-1780's, with its casually-strewn summer flowers, this 'pittoresque' table en chiffonnire corresponds almost exactly in form to a water-colour drawing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (gift of Raphael Esmerian, 59.611.8, illustrated in F.J.B. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection, New York, 1966, vol.1, p.284). Attributed to Richard de Lalonde (flourished 1788-1806) and inscribed Jolie table a dessus de porcelaine ronde le fond du bois est gris les ornemens dors au mat le plateau qui est entre les pieds est en Beau Verny assortie a la porcelaine, this drawing was one of ten provided by the marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre to Duke Albert of Sachsen-Teschen and his wife Maria-Christina. As Parker (et al., The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, May, 1960, p .281) has convincingly argued, the highly finished character of these drawings suggests that they were made as 'sales material' for the dealers' clients rather than as working designs for an bniste.
Joint Governors of the Low Countries between 1780-92, the Sachsen-Teschen's commissioned these furnishings for the Palace at Laeken, near Brussels, which was constructed for them between 1780-5. As brother-in-law and sister of Marie-Antoinette, they were undoubtedly familiar with the prevailing Parisian fashion for porcelain-mounted furniture, and indeed eight of these ten watercolour-drawings - subsequently recorded in the possession of Charles-Joseph, Prince de Ligne (1755-1814) - depicted porcelain-mounted furniture.
DOMINIQUE DAGUERRE
The heir to Simon-Philippe Poirier's atelier, Dominique Daguerre specialised in supplying objets de luxe to the French Court and, increasingly during the 1780's, to the English nobility. Based in the rue St. Honor, as his trade label reveals he Tient Magafin de Porcelaines, Bronzes, Ebnisterie, Glaces, Curiosits, & autres Marshandises, and in the 1780's he even opened a shop in Piccadilly, London to supply the Prince of Wales and his circle, including the Duke of Bedford and Earl Spencer.
Interestingly, Christie's held two sales, the first (anonymous but almost certainly Daguerre's stock) on 15-17 March 1790 and the second, on 25 March 1791, entitled Superb Articles in French Or-Moulu...Imported from Paris by Mons. Daguerre. These clearly demonstrate both the enduring popularity of porcelain-mounted furniture and Daguerre's attempts to dominate the English market. No less than three tables of this general form are included. In the first sale, lot 84 was described as A ditto oval work table, with feve porcelain top or moulu border and mountings, whilst the second day saw A round ditto with porcelaine top, beautifully painted with a bafket of flowers, arabefque border, &c. and tripod ftand of or-moulu, as lot 78; more intriguingly the second sale listed lot 39 as A lady's work table with porcelane and or-moulu mountings, which was bought by a Ld.C (?).
Bayham Abbey was rebuilt by John, 3rd Marquess Camden to designs by the architect David Brandon (d.1879), following his marriage in 1866 to Lady Clementine Spencer-Churchill, daughter of the 6th Duke of Marlborough. Whilst it is possible that the Alexander table was purchased at this time, it could equally well have been bought by either of their forebears in the late 18th Century.
The unusual confronting crescent moon border of the frieze is reminiscent of the fashion for furniture and objects ' la Turque' in the late 1760's. A taste particularly admired by Madame du Barry and her circle, related crescent's featured on the pair of Svres bleu celeste limaons supplied to her by Poirier for Louveciennes on 4 September 1770 (probably those sold by the Marquess of Cholmondeley, Works of Art from Houghton, Christie's London, 8 December 1994, lot 13).
WEISWEILER AND CARLIN
A form traditionally associated with Martin Carlin, the newly-discovered stamp on the Alexander table enlarges Weisweiler's documented oeuvre and further underlines the close collaboration between marchand-mercier and bniste. A table of identical form and mounts, but with a Svres plaque only to the top and a tle peinte panel in imitation to the undertier, also mistakenly given to Carlin by Watson (op.cit) but actually stamped by Weisweiler, was sold from the collection of the late Ren Fribourg, Sotheby's London, 28 June 1963, lot 190 (as unstamped). A further table with apparently identically-painted Svres plaques but with a mahogany frame, was sold anonymously at Christie's London, 4 May 1939, lot 108, and a final example, also apparently unstamped, with a Svres porcelain plaque only to the top, was bequeathed by Alfred de Rothschild to the Rt. Hon. Almina, Countess of Carnarvon and sold at Christie's London, 19-21 May 1925, lot 297.
Carlin also executed tables of identical form, which were no doubt also supplied through Daguerre, as is illustrated by the Japanese lacquer-mounted table in the Wrightsman Collection (Watson, op.cit., no.143, pp.284-6). Moreover, he also executed a small group of tables of very similar design, but with trellis-parquetry, plainer mounts and a single porcelain plaque, such as that supplied to the Grand-Duchess Maria-Feodorovna for Pavlosk Palace in 1782 (sold anonymously at Christie's Geneva, 8 May 1973, lot 61), as well as that probably acquired by Francis Gilson Shepheard (d.1807) and sold by the Trustees of the late Nicholas Meynell, Christie's London, 9 June 1994, lot 67. Interestingly, this latter table, whose Svres plaque bore the date letter for 1782, was painted with almost identical summer flowers by Jean-Jacques-Pierre le jeune, who worked at Svres from 1767-1800.