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Lot Essay
Please see the footnotes to lots 10, 115, 116 and 117 for a discussion of tables en chiffonnière by BVRB. This table is of the model with a shallower frieze, an example of which is in the Wrightsmann Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (F.J.B. Watson, The Wrightsmann Collection, New York, 1966, pp. 251-4, no. 125); a further example was formerly in the collection of Antenor Patiño, sold Sotheby's, New York, 1 November 1986, lot 108 and subsequently in the Wildenstein Collection, sold Christie's London, 14-15 December 2005, lot 47.
This table bears the brand - possibly spurious - of Louis Jean-Marie de Bourbon, duc de Penthièvre, Grand Admiral de France (1725-93) at Châteauneuf-sur-Loire. The château was originally built by the architect Mansart at the end of the 17th century. Initially owned by the Philippeaux de la Vrillière family, it was later purchased from the Rohan-Guiminée family by Louis-Jean-Marie de Bourbon, duc de Penthièvre and grandson of Louis XIV. He also purchased the contents of the château for the considerable sum of 50,000 livres. As in his other residences, Penthièvre ordered ébénisterie from his favourite craftsmen including Jean-François Oeben and Roger Vandercruse, dit Lacroix, from whom he ordered at least a commode and a table. The furnishings of Châteauneuf-sur-Loîre were seized at the Revolution, sent initially to Tours and then to Paris where they were sold without reserve, which was the case with a commode now in the Louvre.
Lady Moira Forbes was one of the two daughters, the other being Eileen, Marchioness of Bute, of the 8th Earl of Granard and Beatrice, his Countess, who was Ogden Mills' daughter. Her second husband was the jeweller Count Theo Rossi de Montelera. For many years Countess Rossi made her home in Turin, eventually moving to Lausanne where she had an apartment overlooking Lake Geneva, which was furnished in the 18th century style, using many family pieces in a way that gave the impression of the elegance of her ancestral homes - both those of the earls of Granard and of her great collector grandfather Ogden Mills.
This table bears the brand - possibly spurious - of Louis Jean-Marie de Bourbon, duc de Penthièvre, Grand Admiral de France (1725-93) at Châteauneuf-sur-Loire. The château was originally built by the architect Mansart at the end of the 17th century. Initially owned by the Philippeaux de la Vrillière family, it was later purchased from the Rohan-Guiminée family by Louis-Jean-Marie de Bourbon, duc de Penthièvre and grandson of Louis XIV. He also purchased the contents of the château for the considerable sum of 50,000 livres. As in his other residences, Penthièvre ordered ébénisterie from his favourite craftsmen including Jean-François Oeben and Roger Vandercruse, dit Lacroix, from whom he ordered at least a commode and a table. The furnishings of Châteauneuf-sur-Loîre were seized at the Revolution, sent initially to Tours and then to Paris where they were sold without reserve, which was the case with a commode now in the Louvre.
Lady Moira Forbes was one of the two daughters, the other being Eileen, Marchioness of Bute, of the 8th Earl of Granard and Beatrice, his Countess, who was Ogden Mills' daughter. Her second husband was the jeweller Count Theo Rossi de Montelera. For many years Countess Rossi made her home in Turin, eventually moving to Lausanne where she had an apartment overlooking Lake Geneva, which was furnished in the 18th century style, using many family pieces in a way that gave the impression of the elegance of her ancestral homes - both those of the earls of Granard and of her great collector grandfather Ogden Mills.