CIRCA 1780-5, STAMPED ST

With its scrolling rinceau arabesques, pearled oval handles and acanthus boss-finials, this lock relates to a design for door hardware supplied 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 dealer's clients rather than as working designs. Joint-Governors of the Low Countries between 1780-92, the Sachsen-Teschen's commissioned these furnishings for the Palace at Laeken, near Brussels, between 1780-5, and as brother-in-law and sister of Marie-Antoinette, respectively, they were undoubtedly familiar with prevailing Parisian fashion.

The design is discussed in M.L.Myers, French Architectural and Ornamental Drawings of the Eighteenth Century, New York, 1991, no,122, p.205.