Lot Essay
François Roumier (d. 1748), who was employed by the Batiments du Roi in 1720 and appointed Sculpteur du Roi in 1721.
Roumier's works were initially only known through a series of prints of his drawings published shortly before his death and up until 1760. He is, however, known to have supplied carved frames for Royal portraits as Sculpteur du roi, a position to which he was appointed in 1721. The iconography of this frame with its Apollo mask, cockerells and fleur-de-lys, indicates that it was possibly made to celebrate the coming to the throne of Louis XV following the Régence period.
The carving of the frame bears strong similarities to the characteristic play between the volutes, the onset and termination of these, and the restraining effects of straight lines in Roumier's carving illustrated in B. Pons De Paris à Versailles 1699-1736, les sculpteurs ornemanistes parisiens et l'art décoratif des Bâtiments du roi, Gap, 1986, fig. 438-444
Roumier's works were initially only known through a series of prints of his drawings published shortly before his death and up until 1760. He is, however, known to have supplied carved frames for Royal portraits as Sculpteur du roi, a position to which he was appointed in 1721. The iconography of this frame with its Apollo mask, cockerells and fleur-de-lys, indicates that it was possibly made to celebrate the coming to the throne of Louis XV following the Régence period.
The carving of the frame bears strong similarities to the characteristic play between the volutes, the onset and termination of these, and the restraining effects of straight lines in Roumier's carving illustrated in B. Pons De Paris à Versailles 1699-1736, les sculpteurs ornemanistes parisiens et l'art décoratif des Bâtiments du roi, Gap, 1986, fig. 438-444