BY FERDINAND BURY

Details

A LOUIS XVI ORMOLU-MOUNTED SYCAMORE BONHEUR-DU-JOUR
By Ferdinand Bury
En suite with the previous lot, inlaid overall with amaranth and boxwood lines, the rectangular white marble top with pierced trefoil three-quarter gallery, above a pair of glazed doors and a central glazed panel, framed by egg-and-dart and rope-twist borders, enclosing a plain sycamore interior, above a panelled cylinder centred by an oval, enclosing a fitted sycamore interior with two open compartments above two small drawers and a sliding green leather-lined writing-surface, above a drawer and a kneehole, flanked to either side by a further short drawer, the left with a coffre-fort, on turned tapering legs inlaid with shaded fruitwood simulated fluting and terminating in ring-turned sabots and wooden castors, the reverse veneered in sycamore, the interior with plugged holes to the sides, stamped 'F. BURY' and 'JME', bearing the spurious stamp 'M. CARLIN'
49 in. (124.5 cm.) high; 27¾ in. (70.5 cm.) wide; 17½ in. (44.5 cm.)

Provenance

Purchased from Partridge Fine Art Ltd. by the present owner.

Literature

Partridge Fine Arts, Summer Exhibition, 1983, p. 109, fig. 43

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

Ferdinand Bury, maître in 1774

This elegant bureau à cylindre, executed by Ferdinand Bury and possibly supplied by Jean-Baptiste Tuart, is closely related to a distinctive group of furniture, which is embellished with a characteristic ormolu-bound central circular medallion. This group includes a bureau from the collection of Prince Anatole Demidoff and subsequently in the collection of Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, which was sold by Baron Guy de Rothschild, Château de Ferrières, Sotheby's Monaco, 3 November 1994, lot 80 and a further example which was sold from the Espirito Santo collection, in these Rooms, 12 December 1996, lot 99.

Bury collaborated with Tuart on numerous occasions as ébéniste and marchand, as a dual stamp appears frequently. He also worked for Jean-Henri Riesener, for instance on a parquetry commode bearing the marque au feu of the Château de Versailles, and stamped three times by Bury and once by Riesener, which is now in the Louvre (D. Alcouffe, Le Mobilier du Musée du Louvre, Dijon, 1993, vol. I, p. 269).

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