A PAIR OF FRENCH ORMOLU AND SEVRES PORCELAIN-MOUNTED MAHOGANY AND PARQUETRY SECRETAIRES

BASICALLY LOUIS XVI AND RECONSTRUCTED IN THE SECOND QUARTER OF THE 19TH CENTURY, THE SVRES PORCELAIN PLAQUES PROBABLY CIRCA 1765

Details
A PAIR OF FRENCH ORMOLU AND SEVRES PORCELAIN-MOUNTED MAHOGANY AND PARQUETRY SECRETAIRES
Basically Louis XVI and reconstructed in the second quarter of the 19th Century, the Svres porcelain plaques probably circa 1765
Each with canted rectangular galleried white marble top above a hinged fall-front with oval plaque of a putto and plaques with trophies to each corners, enclosing a fitted interior with hinged writing-surface above a cupboard door with similar plaques and trelllis parquetry flanked by fluted uprights with classical urn mounts, on toupie feet
39in. (99cm.) high, 18in. (46cm.) wide, 14in. (37cm.) deep
Provenance
Jean Charlotte de Rothschild, Baronne Leonino (1874-1929), Paris.
The Ren Fribourg Collection, sold Sotheby's Parke-Bernet, 17-18 October 1963, VII, Furniture Part II, lot 816.
Sale room notice
Please note that these were sold from the Ren Fribourg Collection at Sotheby's Parke-Bernet in London and not in New York as stated in the catalogue.

Lot Essay

This pair of cabinets provides an interesting insight into the revival of interest in porcelain-mounted furniture in the second quarter of the 19th Century. Such pieces, mounted with Svres porcelain plaques by bnistes working for the principal marchand-merciers in Paris, were extremely fashionable from the early 1760's through the 1780's. The green-ground Svres porcelain plaques on these two cabinets (not examined dismounted) probably date from around 1765. Most green-ground furniture plaques of this type tend to date from the 1760's. The particular pattern of gilding with palm wreaths is similar to the gilded lozenge pattern found on other plaques dated 1766 on a cabinet by Leleu in the Wallace Collection (see R. Savill, The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Svres porcelain, London, 1988, vol. III, p. 865).

Genuine 18th Century plaques were available throughout the 19th Century, sixty-five being available in the Hume sale of 1870 and thirty-four as late as 1895 in the Beurdeley sale. Moreover, several dealers were engaged in both the alteration of existing pieces of Louis XV and Louis XVI furniture, as well as the construction of new pieces to receive 18th Century plaques. Foremost amongst these was the English marchand-mercier Edward Holmes Baldock (active 1830's -1840's), as well as Nicolas Morel and Charles Tatham in England and A. L. Bellanger (circa 1825), Vach (active in the 1820's) and Jules Piret (in the 1850's) in France.

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