POSSIBLY BY ROGER VANDERCRUSE ('RVLC') DIT LACROIX, CIRCA 1770

Roger Vandercruse, dit Lacroix (RVLC) maître in 1755.

Vandercruse ranks amongst the most notable 18th century Parisian ébénistes and counted amongst his clients the marchand-mercier Simon-Philippe Poirier, Madame du Barry at Louveciennes, the Garde-Meuble and the duc d'Orléans. This elegant ‘table en chiffonnière’ sits comfortably amongst a group of closely related examples produced by this renowned maître-ébéniste. There are numerous known minor variants of this most successful of designs, which include both oval and round examples, many of which employ RVLC’s distinctive trellis-patterned marquetry and striking bowed cabriole legs. Indeed three such examples (one of which is near identical to the present table) are illustrated by Pierre Kjellberg to illustrate Vandercruse’s oeuvre and a further near identical example, stamped ‘RVLC’ is in the Rothschild collection at Waddeston Manor (P. Kjellberg, Le Mobilier Français du XVIIIe Siècle, Paris, 1989, pp. 752 & 753, figs. B, C, & D and C. Roinet, Roger Vandercruse dit La Croix, Paris, 2000, p. 95, fig. 39).

Initially active in the execution of furniture in the mature rococo style, RVLC is probably best known for his production of elegant pieces in the 'Transitional' style of the 1760s and 1770s such as this this table en chiffonière. He specialised in the making of functional yet supremely elegant petites tables, perhaps as a result of his frequent collaborations with the marchand-mercier Simon-Philippe Poirier. The relationship with the Poirier was particularly fruitful and it was he who commissioned an innovative group of tables ‘en cabaret’, inset with superb Sevres porcelain trays and plaques, from both RVLC and his contemporary BVRB (called Bernard II van Risen Burgh), produced from the mid-1750s. Interestingly several of these tables, produced a decade ahead of the present example, also employ related trellis pattern decoration and it was perhaps their success that firmly established the trellis template amongst RVLC’s oeuvre (for one such example see Exhibition Catalogue 18th Century, Birth of Design, Versailles, Château de Versailles, 2014, pp. 170-171, no. 47).

A closely related trellis marquetry table of this form, stamped RVLC, but fitted as a table a ecrire was sold from the Andre Meyre collection, Christie’s New York, 26 October 2001, lot 40 ($176,500) and a another related example was sold Christie’s London, 6 July 2012, lot 79 (£85,250). A further variant on this model decorated with trellis marquetry (interestingly fitted with castors, as this table appears to have originally been) is in the collection of the Museé Nissim de Camondo in Paris (N. Gasc & G Mabille, The Nissim de Camondo Museum, Paris, 1991, p.29).