A PAIR OF FRENCH ORMOLU-MOUNTED TORTOISESHELL, BRASS AND PEWTER BOULLE MARQUETRY PETITES COMMODES

RECONSTRUCTED INCORPORATING 18TH CENTURY ELEMENTS

細節

A PAIR OF FRENCH ORMOLU-MOUNTED TORTOISESHELL, BRASS AND PEWTER BOULLE MARQUETRY PETITES COMMODES
RECONSTRUCTED INCORPORATING 18TH CENTURY ELEMENTS
Each with a rectangular Portor marble top with moulded edge above a frieze decorated with sunflowers flanked by acanthus, above three drawers inlaid with foliate scrolls and centered by a foliate handle and an escutcheon decorated with an Apollo's mask emerging from a shell, within borders cast with flowerheads, the angles with breakfront pilasters headed by capitals with masks, ram's heads and acanthus and terminating in a foliate plinths, the sides centered by gods and figures symbolizing the Arts within entwined inlaid border and conforming molding, the base with a gadrooned edge decorated to the angles with floral paterae, on spirally turned feet, each stamped once with spurious stamp 'E. LEVASSEUR' and 'B. MOLITOR'
39½ in. (110 cm.) high, 32¾ in. (83 cm.) wide, 20 in. (51 cm.) deep (2)

拍品專文

This pair of petites commodes is based on a model popularized by Pierre-Etienne Levasseur, maître in 1767, of which a pair is in the collection of the Duke of Wellington at Stratfield Saye, Berkshire. Illustrated in F.J.B. Watson, 'The Great Dukes Taste For French Furniture', Apollo, July 1975, vol. CII, p.47 (fig. 8), these latter cabinets - together with a further set of four bibliothèques basses, two meubles d'entre-deux and four pedestals all by Levasseur - were acquired by the triumphant 1st Duke of Wellington from the otherwise little-known marchand-mercier Le Chevalier Féréol de Bonnemaison, circa 1817. A related set of four stamped by Levasseur was sold anonymously at Sotheby's, New York, 7 May 1983, lot 212, and is illustrated in A. Pradère, French Furniture Makers, Paris, 1989, p. 309, while another pair was sold anonymously, Christie's, London, 12 December 2002, lot 23.