A LOUIS XIV STYLE ORMOLU-MOUNTED BRASS AND TORTOISESHELL-INLAID "BOULLE" MARQUETRY EBONIZED ARMOIRE

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A LOUIS XIV STYLE ORMOLU-MOUNTED BRASS AND TORTOISESHELL-INLAID "BOULLE" MARQUETRY EBONIZED ARMOIRE
THIRD QUARTER 19TH CENTURY, STAMPED BEFORT JEUNE TWICE

With a rectangular breakfront cornice above a central panelled door inlaid in contre partie with foliate swags and applied with a grotesque mask and a shaped pedestal surmounted by an allegory of Autumn flanked by similarly inlaid doors applied with putti and foliate scrolls on a conforming plinth on two spirally cast tapering feet and four baluster turned legs--66¾in. (170.2cm.) high, 73½in. (186.7cm.) wide, 20in. (50.8cm.) deep

Lot Essay

Mathieu Befort (1813-1880) is recorded as having worked in Paris at 1 Rue Neuve-Saint-Gilles from 1836 to 1866 and later moving to No.6, residing there until 1880. He descended from a family of renowned ébénistes and was the son of Jean-Baptiste Befort, called Befort Père. Father and son are noted for their reproductions and interpretations of furniture executed by André Charles Boulle.

The offered lot is a pastiche of the armoire commissioned by Louis XIV in 16 from André Charles Boulle and is now at Versailles (see Denise Ledoux-Lebard, 19th Century Furniture, 1984, pp. 48, 49, 50, a similarly mounted cabinet illustrated on p. 50).

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