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Lot Essay
This guèridon in the Empire style has been inspired by designs by Napoleon's famous architects Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine. In their Receuil de decorations interieures, 1801, pl. XIX they published the design for a wash basin on a tripartite base with classical monopodia legs surmounted by swans virtually identical to those of the offered gueridon. A similar athenienne by Martin-Guillaume Biennais (1764-1843) and Joseph-Gabriel Genu is in the Louvre (illustrated in M. Deschamps, Empire, London, 1994, p. 166). A pair of guèridons with similar top and swans was sold at Sotheby's 5 October 1991 ($ 37,000).
The striking use of flower-centred scolls adorned with palme leaves relates to furniture executed after designs by Leo von Klenze (1784-1864), who was in turn strongly influenced by Percier and Fontaine, for the neo-classical extention of the Munich Residenz, known as the the Königsbau, (see G. Hojer and H. Ottomeyer, Die Möbel der Residenz München, vol. II, cat. nos. 49, 57-58 and 61).
The striking use of flower-centred scolls adorned with palme leaves relates to furniture executed after designs by Leo von Klenze (1784-1864), who was in turn strongly influenced by Percier and Fontaine, for the neo-classical extention of the Munich Residenz, known as the the Königsbau, (see G. Hojer and H. Ottomeyer, Die Möbel der Residenz München, vol. II, cat. nos. 49, 57-58 and 61).