Lot Essay
PIERRE-LOUIS-ARNULPHE DUGUERS DE MONTROSIER (1758-1806)
The distictive form and monumental grandeur of the Morny table is closely related to the designs of Pierre-Louis-Arnulphe Duguers de Montrosier. In 1799, Duguer's wife Anne-Elisabeth Lair borrowed the enormous sum of 25,000 francs from M. Henrion to enable her husband to 'employer à leurs affaires et dont ils sont contents' - and thus launching his career as an ébéniste, joining forces shortly after with the marchand-ébéniste Hutin of the Boulevard des Italiens. Specialising in the creation of furniture of exceptional design, 'très chargés de bronzes et lourds de forme', his career was tragically cut short by his early death in 1806. His widow, however, carried on his trade and at the Exposition des Produits de l'Industrie Française in Paris in 1806, exhibited a monument to Frederick the Great, as well publishing a recueil in which were reproduced 'les meubles, pendules et candélabres, composés et exécutés par L. DUGUERS', featuring several of Dugueur's most lavish furniture designs. Bound by a loan of 100,000 francs entered into by her husband shortly before his death and unable either to escape this debt or to sell her husband's furniture, after protracted negotiations with the Garde-Meuble Impériale that lasted until 1812, Madame Duguers was reluctantly forced to cede certain pieces in settlement of this debt. Amongst the items ceded was 'une console très riche de six pieds de long sur huit colonnes torses, table de marbre, chapiteaux de bronze, 18 000 F'.
Possibly supplied by the marchand-mercier François Godon, this princely side table may well have been commissioned by Auguste-Charles-Joseph, comte de Flahaut de la Billarderie (1785-1867) or his lover Queen Hortense, the wife of Louis Napoléon, King of Holland (d.1846). Subsequently inherited by their son, the duc de Morny, half-brother of the future Emperor Napol/aeon III, the table was placed in the duc's appartements at the hôtel de Lassay, Paris (now the residence of the President of the National Assembly). First recorded in the inventory taken of the hôtel de Lassay following the duc's death in 1865, it was described as:-
'1090...Une très grande et belle console de style Louis XVI en bois noir et bronze doré d'or mat, elle repose sur huit pieds à caneaux en spirale avec entrejambe supportant une branche de laurier, un caducée et une trompette en bronze doré. La frise est ornée de bas-reliefs avec entre-deux à têtes de lions tenant des couronnes de fleurs dans leurs gueules. Dessus en marbre griotte d'Italie avec bordure en marbre vert d'Egypte'.
Now lacking the Trumpet of Fame and Mercury's Caduceus, this description clearly reveals that both the present marble slab and the laurel wreath to the stretcher had already been replaced by the time of the duc's death in 1865. In a further inventory undertaken ten years later on behalf of the heirs, it was noted that the widowed Princess Sofia Troubetskoi, duchesse de Morny, would retain the table. Following her re-marriage on the 4 April 1868 to Don José Osorio, Duque D'Albuquerque et de Sesto, the duchesse moved to Madrid.
With its superlative bas-relief mounts and architectural stretcher, this side table is stylistically closely related to the oeuvre of the ébéniste du Roi, Adam Weisweiler. In particular, the distinctive central frieze mount with two reclining Gods seated back to back against a drapery-swagged background can also be seen on a mahogany console by Weisweiler illustrated in P. Lemonnier, Weisweiler, Paris, 1983, p.79. However, bronzes d'ameublement were often commissioned by the marchand-mercier himself, and thus although the mounts may well have been executed by the same hand, almost certainly Pierre-Phillippe Thomire (maître-doreur in 1765), the probable ébéniste is far more difficult to determine. This is certainly borne out by the commode supplied by Guillaume Beneman for the chambre à coucher du Roi at the château de Saint-Cloud (now in the Getty Museum (78.DA.361)), which displays frieze mounts of a very similar vein, cast by Forestier and Badin, chased by Thomire and gilded by André Galle.
Finally, a pair of pier-tables of virtually identical design, almost certainly inspired by the Morny table, was acquired by Charles de Beistegui for the château de Groussay (illustrated in C. Aslet, 'Château de Groussay', Country Life, 18 June 1987, p.161, fig.12). They are, however, 20th Century copies commissioned by Emilio Terry from an as yet untraced design.
The distictive form and monumental grandeur of the Morny table is closely related to the designs of Pierre-Louis-Arnulphe Duguers de Montrosier. In 1799, Duguer's wife Anne-Elisabeth Lair borrowed the enormous sum of 25,000 francs from M. Henrion to enable her husband to 'employer à leurs affaires et dont ils sont contents' - and thus launching his career as an ébéniste, joining forces shortly after with the marchand-ébéniste Hutin of the Boulevard des Italiens. Specialising in the creation of furniture of exceptional design, 'très chargés de bronzes et lourds de forme', his career was tragically cut short by his early death in 1806. His widow, however, carried on his trade and at the Exposition des Produits de l'Industrie Française in Paris in 1806, exhibited a monument to Frederick the Great, as well publishing a recueil in which were reproduced 'les meubles, pendules et candélabres, composés et exécutés par L. DUGUERS', featuring several of Dugueur's most lavish furniture designs. Bound by a loan of 100,000 francs entered into by her husband shortly before his death and unable either to escape this debt or to sell her husband's furniture, after protracted negotiations with the Garde-Meuble Impériale that lasted until 1812, Madame Duguers was reluctantly forced to cede certain pieces in settlement of this debt. Amongst the items ceded was 'une console très riche de six pieds de long sur huit colonnes torses, table de marbre, chapiteaux de bronze, 18 000 F'.
Possibly supplied by the marchand-mercier François Godon, this princely side table may well have been commissioned by Auguste-Charles-Joseph, comte de Flahaut de la Billarderie (1785-1867) or his lover Queen Hortense, the wife of Louis Napoléon, King of Holland (d.1846). Subsequently inherited by their son, the duc de Morny, half-brother of the future Emperor Napol/aeon III, the table was placed in the duc's appartements at the hôtel de Lassay, Paris (now the residence of the President of the National Assembly). First recorded in the inventory taken of the hôtel de Lassay following the duc's death in 1865, it was described as:-
'1090...Une très grande et belle console de style Louis XVI en bois noir et bronze doré d'or mat, elle repose sur huit pieds à caneaux en spirale avec entrejambe supportant une branche de laurier, un caducée et une trompette en bronze doré. La frise est ornée de bas-reliefs avec entre-deux à têtes de lions tenant des couronnes de fleurs dans leurs gueules. Dessus en marbre griotte d'Italie avec bordure en marbre vert d'Egypte'.
Now lacking the Trumpet of Fame and Mercury's Caduceus, this description clearly reveals that both the present marble slab and the laurel wreath to the stretcher had already been replaced by the time of the duc's death in 1865. In a further inventory undertaken ten years later on behalf of the heirs, it was noted that the widowed Princess Sofia Troubetskoi, duchesse de Morny, would retain the table. Following her re-marriage on the 4 April 1868 to Don José Osorio, Duque D'Albuquerque et de Sesto, the duchesse moved to Madrid.
With its superlative bas-relief mounts and architectural stretcher, this side table is stylistically closely related to the oeuvre of the ébéniste du Roi, Adam Weisweiler. In particular, the distinctive central frieze mount with two reclining Gods seated back to back against a drapery-swagged background can also be seen on a mahogany console by Weisweiler illustrated in P. Lemonnier, Weisweiler, Paris, 1983, p.79. However, bronzes d'ameublement were often commissioned by the marchand-mercier himself, and thus although the mounts may well have been executed by the same hand, almost certainly Pierre-Phillippe Thomire (maître-doreur in 1765), the probable ébéniste is far more difficult to determine. This is certainly borne out by the commode supplied by Guillaume Beneman for the chambre à coucher du Roi at the château de Saint-Cloud (now in the Getty Museum (78.DA.361)), which displays frieze mounts of a very similar vein, cast by Forestier and Badin, chased by Thomire and gilded by André Galle.
Finally, a pair of pier-tables of virtually identical design, almost certainly inspired by the Morny table, was acquired by Charles de Beistegui for the château de Groussay (illustrated in C. Aslet, 'Château de Groussay', Country Life, 18 June 1987, p.161, fig.12). They are, however, 20th Century copies commissioned by Emilio Terry from an as yet untraced design.