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拍品專文
Roger Vandercruse, called Lacroix, maître in 1755.
This superb bureau plat, with its bold proportions and play of light and dark timbers, is closely related to various iconic items of furniture in the so-called gout grec style, the early phase of French neo-classicism. It can be attributed to Roger Vandercruse, who adopted this new style in the early 1760s when he produced some of his most accomplished pieces.
Around 1754-'56, the first experimental items of furniture were conceived and produced, notably the great bureau play made by Joseph Baumhauer (d. 1772) and Philippe Caffiéri (d. 1774) to the designs of Louis-Joseph Le Lorrain (d. 1759) for Ange-Laurent Lalive de Jully, which is now at the Musée Condé at Chantilly (S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, figs. 85-89). This extremely monumental piece is veneered in ebony and richly-mounted in gilt-bronze, turning it into a showpiece of the new style with the presence of a manifesto; its monumental size and materials used also hark back to the Grand Siècle, the age of Louis XIV that was an inspiration to many of the early neo-classical artist and critics.
Within a few years, the bold manner had gained wide popularity, and in 1763 Baron de Grimm was writing in Paris: 'tout ce faut aujourd hui à la grecque' (ibid, p. 264). In the field of furniture, too, the syle had spread outside the sphere of a rarefied group of avant-garde patrons and collectors. One of the earliest recorded examples of goût grec furniture in lighter woods and a more domestic scale, concerns the purchase in the years 1763-'65 by George William, 6th Earl of Coventry, of a number of items from the famous marchand-mercier Simon-Philippe Poirier. In 1763, Coventry acquired the celebrated commode by Lacroix (Christie's, New York, 2 November 2000, lot 264), which was followed un Bureau à la grec in 1765.
The present bureau relates to the Coventry commode both in the proportions and the ormolu mounts framing the drawers, while the rosette mounts and the trailing foliate motifs to the legs preludes his later style. The use of contrasting timbers, in this instance holly and sycamore, remained one of his favoured themes throughout his career. These traling motifs but also his dot and floral-trellis patterns were all the more striking for this contrast. The present bureau and Lacroux's small bonheur-du-jour supplied to Maria Feodorovna but also the porcelain-mounted secretaire in the Metropolitan Museum, share these foliate trails in similar woods (C. Roinet, Roger Vandercruse dit La Croix, Paris, 2000, pp. 51, 57).
This superb bureau plat, with its bold proportions and play of light and dark timbers, is closely related to various iconic items of furniture in the so-called gout grec style, the early phase of French neo-classicism. It can be attributed to Roger Vandercruse, who adopted this new style in the early 1760s when he produced some of his most accomplished pieces.
Around 1754-'56, the first experimental items of furniture were conceived and produced, notably the great bureau play made by Joseph Baumhauer (d. 1772) and Philippe Caffiéri (d. 1774) to the designs of Louis-Joseph Le Lorrain (d. 1759) for Ange-Laurent Lalive de Jully, which is now at the Musée Condé at Chantilly (S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, figs. 85-89). This extremely monumental piece is veneered in ebony and richly-mounted in gilt-bronze, turning it into a showpiece of the new style with the presence of a manifesto; its monumental size and materials used also hark back to the Grand Siècle, the age of Louis XIV that was an inspiration to many of the early neo-classical artist and critics.
Within a few years, the bold manner had gained wide popularity, and in 1763 Baron de Grimm was writing in Paris: 'tout ce faut aujourd hui à la grecque' (ibid, p. 264). In the field of furniture, too, the syle had spread outside the sphere of a rarefied group of avant-garde patrons and collectors. One of the earliest recorded examples of goût grec furniture in lighter woods and a more domestic scale, concerns the purchase in the years 1763-'65 by George William, 6th Earl of Coventry, of a number of items from the famous marchand-mercier Simon-Philippe Poirier. In 1763, Coventry acquired the celebrated commode by Lacroix (Christie's, New York, 2 November 2000, lot 264), which was followed un Bureau à la grec in 1765.
The present bureau relates to the Coventry commode both in the proportions and the ormolu mounts framing the drawers, while the rosette mounts and the trailing foliate motifs to the legs preludes his later style. The use of contrasting timbers, in this instance holly and sycamore, remained one of his favoured themes throughout his career. These traling motifs but also his dot and floral-trellis patterns were all the more striking for this contrast. The present bureau and Lacroux's small bonheur-du-jour supplied to Maria Feodorovna but also the porcelain-mounted secretaire in the Metropolitan Museum, share these foliate trails in similar woods (C. Roinet, Roger Vandercruse dit La Croix, Paris, 2000, pp. 51, 57).