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Lot Essay
Caspar Schneider, maître in 1786.
Born in Augsburg, Schneider moved to Paris at an unknown date after working as a ouvrier libre laborer in the Faubourg-Saint-Antoine during the 1780s. One of his earliest recorded commissions was for the Royal Garde-Meuble when he supplied a 'secretaire même proportion qu'un fait par M. Riesener...' with mounts by Thomire in October of 1785. This early documented commission demonstrates Schneider's conscious emulation and imitation of the designs of the elder Riesener's oeuvre, which paralleled in many ways those of Weisweiler.
Only very few cabinet-makers were commissioned by the Parisian marchands-mercier Poirier and Daguerre to supply porcelain-mounted furniture, and principal among them were Adam Weisweiler and Martin Carlin. It is therefore significant to note that Schneider, upon the death of Martin Carlin in 1785, soon married his widow, Marie-Catherine, giving him control of his late master's atelier (see A. Pradère, Les Ebénistes Français de Louis XIV à la Révolution, Paris, 1989, p. 419). Significantly, Schneider inherited his master's relationship with the marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre, for whom he is known to have both finished incomplete Carlin pieces with as well as supplied newly-made furniture to order.
Schneider produced, or modified, a number of porcelain-mounted pieces, such as the exquisite Sèvres-mounted jewel-coffer, which was executed by Carlin and modified by Schneider for the Duke and Duchess the Sachsen-Teschen, and was sold from the di Portanova Collection at Christie's, New York, 2 November 2000, lot 200 ($1,546,000). Another example is the Sèvres-mounted secretaire a abattant from the Rothschild Collection, which sold at Christie's, New York, 11 December 2014, lot 46 ($100,000).
Born in Augsburg, Schneider moved to Paris at an unknown date after working as a ouvrier libre laborer in the Faubourg-Saint-Antoine during the 1780s. One of his earliest recorded commissions was for the Royal Garde-Meuble when he supplied a 'secretaire même proportion qu'un fait par M. Riesener...' with mounts by Thomire in October of 1785. This early documented commission demonstrates Schneider's conscious emulation and imitation of the designs of the elder Riesener's oeuvre, which paralleled in many ways those of Weisweiler.
Only very few cabinet-makers were commissioned by the Parisian marchands-mercier Poirier and Daguerre to supply porcelain-mounted furniture, and principal among them were Adam Weisweiler and Martin Carlin. It is therefore significant to note that Schneider, upon the death of Martin Carlin in 1785, soon married his widow, Marie-Catherine, giving him control of his late master's atelier (see A. Pradère, Les Ebénistes Français de Louis XIV à la Révolution, Paris, 1989, p. 419). Significantly, Schneider inherited his master's relationship with the marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre, for whom he is known to have both finished incomplete Carlin pieces with as well as supplied newly-made furniture to order.
Schneider produced, or modified, a number of porcelain-mounted pieces, such as the exquisite Sèvres-mounted jewel-coffer, which was executed by Carlin and modified by Schneider for the Duke and Duchess the Sachsen-Teschen, and was sold from the di Portanova Collection at Christie's, New York, 2 November 2000, lot 200 ($1,546,000). Another example is the Sèvres-mounted secretaire a abattant from the Rothschild Collection, which sold at Christie's, New York, 11 December 2014, lot 46 ($100,000).