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Lot Essay
Martin Carlin, maître in 1766.
This model of table en chiffonière can be confidently dated to the mid-1770s. Several elements of the design - particularly the legs and the ormolu mounts employed - evolved from the circular table pattern with Sèvres porcelain plaques invented in 1771. In that year the marchand-mercier Simon-Philippe Poirier acquired from the Manufacture Royale de Sèvres '3 quarts de cercles 15l...45l' and the table for which those plaques were intended may be identified with that in the Metropolitan Museum which, exceptionally, displays plaques with the date letter for 1771 (illustrated in F.J.B. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection, Vol.III, New York, 1970, pp.52-4, no.297).
Between 1772 and 1776, 67 plaques en quart de cercle were sold to Poirier and his successor, Dominique Daguerre - confirming the continuing popularity this model of table enjoyed, sold to clients such as Madame du Barry, the Princesse Louise-Mathilde de Bourbon Condé, the duchesse de Choiseul-Praslin before 1784 and the duchesse de Narbonne.
This same basic rectangular form of table en chiffonnière - but without the unique drawered superstructure of the Wildenstein table - also appears on Carlin's series of tables à liseuse executed in Japanese lacquer. 18th Century documentation does not throw much light on this latter model of table; however, in the 1806 Inventory of madame de Montessan, the widow of the duc d'Orléans and an important client of both Poirier and Daguerre, there is recorded:-
'Une petite chiffonière de bois d'ébéne et laque avec gaines et ornements de cuivre doré, le dessus aussi en laque s'ouvrant et servant du pupitre 100 francs'. An example of this lacquer model was sold in these Rooms, Boulle to Jansen, 11 June 2004, lot 15.
This model of table en chiffonière can be confidently dated to the mid-1770s. Several elements of the design - particularly the legs and the ormolu mounts employed - evolved from the circular table pattern with Sèvres porcelain plaques invented in 1771. In that year the marchand-mercier Simon-Philippe Poirier acquired from the Manufacture Royale de Sèvres '3 quarts de cercles 15l...45l' and the table for which those plaques were intended may be identified with that in the Metropolitan Museum which, exceptionally, displays plaques with the date letter for 1771 (illustrated in F.J.B. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection, Vol.III, New York, 1970, pp.52-4, no.297).
Between 1772 and 1776, 67 plaques en quart de cercle were sold to Poirier and his successor, Dominique Daguerre - confirming the continuing popularity this model of table enjoyed, sold to clients such as Madame du Barry, the Princesse Louise-Mathilde de Bourbon Condé, the duchesse de Choiseul-Praslin before 1784 and the duchesse de Narbonne.
This same basic rectangular form of table en chiffonnière - but without the unique drawered superstructure of the Wildenstein table - also appears on Carlin's series of tables à liseuse executed in Japanese lacquer. 18th Century documentation does not throw much light on this latter model of table; however, in the 1806 Inventory of madame de Montessan, the widow of the duc d'Orléans and an important client of both Poirier and Daguerre, there is recorded:-
'Une petite chiffonière de bois d'ébéne et laque avec gaines et ornements de cuivre doré, le dessus aussi en laque s'ouvrant et servant du pupitre 100 francs'. An example of this lacquer model was sold in these Rooms, Boulle to Jansen, 11 June 2004, lot 15.