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Lot Essay
This exceptional table de dame is a reproduction of the celebrated model by Adam Weisweiler (1744-1820), delivered in 1784 by the famous Parisian marchand-mercier Daguerre to the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne. It was placed in Marie-Antoinette's cabinet intérieur at Château de Saint-Cloud and was subsequently gifted to her close friend, Madame de Polignac. Having been sold after the Revolution, the Weisweiler table was discovered in a marchand's shop on the Quai Voltaire in 1840 by the Prince de Beauvau (d. 1864). Purchased by the Empress Eugénie at auction the year after his death, it was placed in her salon bleu at the Tuileries, where she gave her audiences. As her purchase demonstrates, Eugénie was an avid collector of Louis XVI decorations, particularly those formerly owned by Marie-Antoinette.
Again influencing fashion as she had 100 years earlier, Marie-Antoinette was again à la mode during the last quarter of the 19th century. Her table was manufactured by a number of preeminent Parisian ébénistes who specialized in meubles de style, including Henry Dasson's contemporaries, Alfred Beurdeley, François Linke, and Paul Sormani. Recent examples of this model by Paul Sormani and an anonymous cabinet-maker were sold at Sotheby's, London, 8 June 2005, lot 77 (£96,000) and 7 December 2005, lot 270 (£66,000), respectively.
Again influencing fashion as she had 100 years earlier, Marie-Antoinette was again à la mode during the last quarter of the 19th century. Her table was manufactured by a number of preeminent Parisian ébénistes who specialized in meubles de style, including Henry Dasson's contemporaries, Alfred Beurdeley, François Linke, and Paul Sormani. Recent examples of this model by Paul Sormani and an anonymous cabinet-maker were sold at Sotheby's, London, 8 June 2005, lot 77 (£96,000) and 7 December 2005, lot 270 (£66,000), respectively.