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Lot Essay
This superb buffet à deux corps, of impressive architectural form with column uprights and pedimented cresting framing à l'antique military trophy reliefs and panels of richly veined noir maquina marble, is part of a well-defined group of cabinets of related form.
Traditionally this group of cabinets had been dated to the period of Henri II and associated with the circle of the sculpteur Jean Goujon (c. 1510-c. 1572), whose work at the Louvre with Pierre Lescot and at the Château d'Ecouen played such an influential role in the development of the distinctively French classical style of the second half of the 16th century.
However, recent research in contemporary documents by scholars such as Daniel Alcouffe in Paris and Jack Hinton in Philadelphia has revealed that this group of cabinets is more likely to date from the early part of the 17th century, to the end of Henri IV's reign and the early years of Louis XIII. A document of 1619 describes in remarkable detail the eagle and swan reliefs interspersed with marble panels (all features of the cabinet offered here) on an armoire by the marchand menuisier Jacques Caignet:
'le corps d'embas dudit cabinet est taillé de quatre oyseaux dont deux aigles et deux cygnes avec la grand pièce de marbre entre les oyseaux...' (see D. Alcouffe et al., Un Temps d'Exubérance Les Arts Décoratifs sous Louis XIII et Anne d'Autriche, exh. cat., Paris, 2002, p. 223).
A further document of 1627 records the sale by the maître menuisier Claude Delfins to Audrian Guytonneau, secretary to the Garde des Sceaux, of a '...cabinet de bois de noyer...' with '...chapiteaux et...colonnes, enrichy de tailles et de marbre' (see J. Hinton, "Des meubles d'après Jean Goujon? Le mobilier français du XVIIe siècle, formes et interprétation", Revue de l'Art, 2009, no. 164, p. 44).
Although by the 1620s this style of cabinet, which clearly demonstrates the influence of Goujon's circle of half a century earlier, was almost retardataire in style, nevertheless its embrace of a triumphant, classical style reflected a turbulent period when Henri IV, through his promotion of the second school of Fontainebleau, strove to assert the unshakeable authority of the monarchy through implicitly comparing itself to classical Rome through the arts. Other related cabinets in this group include one in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Hinton, op. cit.,, pp. 37-46); one in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (Alcouffe, op. cit.,, cat. 129, pp. 222-3), both formerly in the collection of Edmond Foulc; two cabinets in the Wallace Collection, London (P. Hughes, Wallace Collection, London, 1996, vol. I, cat. 2 and 3, pp. 68-76); and one illustrated in J. Boccador, Le Mobilier Français du Moyen Age à la Renaissance, Paris, 1988, p. 253.
THE PROVENANCE
E.John Magnin, who acquired this splendid cabinet in 1928, was the son of Isaac and Mary Ann Magnin, who in 1876 created the celebrated department store of the same name in San Francisco. Magnin's magnificent store on Union Square was known as the 'White Marble Palace'.
The sales of the collection of Madame de Polès which took place at Galerie Georges Petit in 1927 and Galerie Charpentier in 1936 were landmark events in the market for French fine and decorative arts, with historic works by Fragonard, Boucher and Hubert Robert alongside masterpieces by all the best cabinet-makers of 18th century France such as André-Charles Boulle (including the center table which when sold from the Riahi Collection at Christie's in 2000 made a world record for furniture by Boulle which still stands to this day), Martin Carlin (including the two celebrated meubles d'entre deux in this sale lot 1120), Jean-Henri Riesener, David Roentgen and R.V.L.C.
Traditionally this group of cabinets had been dated to the period of Henri II and associated with the circle of the sculpteur Jean Goujon (c. 1510-c. 1572), whose work at the Louvre with Pierre Lescot and at the Château d'Ecouen played such an influential role in the development of the distinctively French classical style of the second half of the 16th century.
However, recent research in contemporary documents by scholars such as Daniel Alcouffe in Paris and Jack Hinton in Philadelphia has revealed that this group of cabinets is more likely to date from the early part of the 17th century, to the end of Henri IV's reign and the early years of Louis XIII. A document of 1619 describes in remarkable detail the eagle and swan reliefs interspersed with marble panels (all features of the cabinet offered here) on an armoire by the marchand menuisier Jacques Caignet:
'le corps d'embas dudit cabinet est taillé de quatre oyseaux dont deux aigles et deux cygnes avec la grand pièce de marbre entre les oyseaux...' (see D. Alcouffe et al., Un Temps d'Exubérance Les Arts Décoratifs sous Louis XIII et Anne d'Autriche, exh. cat., Paris, 2002, p. 223).
A further document of 1627 records the sale by the maître menuisier Claude Delfins to Audrian Guytonneau, secretary to the Garde des Sceaux, of a '...cabinet de bois de noyer...' with '...chapiteaux et...colonnes, enrichy de tailles et de marbre' (see J. Hinton, "Des meubles d'après Jean Goujon? Le mobilier français du XVIIe siècle, formes et interprétation", Revue de l'Art, 2009, no. 164, p. 44).
Although by the 1620s this style of cabinet, which clearly demonstrates the influence of Goujon's circle of half a century earlier, was almost retardataire in style, nevertheless its embrace of a triumphant, classical style reflected a turbulent period when Henri IV, through his promotion of the second school of Fontainebleau, strove to assert the unshakeable authority of the monarchy through implicitly comparing itself to classical Rome through the arts. Other related cabinets in this group include one in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Hinton, op. cit.,, pp. 37-46); one in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (Alcouffe, op. cit.,, cat. 129, pp. 222-3), both formerly in the collection of Edmond Foulc; two cabinets in the Wallace Collection, London (P. Hughes, Wallace Collection, London, 1996, vol. I, cat. 2 and 3, pp. 68-76); and one illustrated in J. Boccador, Le Mobilier Français du Moyen Age à la Renaissance, Paris, 1988, p. 253.
THE PROVENANCE
E.John Magnin, who acquired this splendid cabinet in 1928, was the son of Isaac and Mary Ann Magnin, who in 1876 created the celebrated department store of the same name in San Francisco. Magnin's magnificent store on Union Square was known as the 'White Marble Palace'.
The sales of the collection of Madame de Polès which took place at Galerie Georges Petit in 1927 and Galerie Charpentier in 1936 were landmark events in the market for French fine and decorative arts, with historic works by Fragonard, Boucher and Hubert Robert alongside masterpieces by all the best cabinet-makers of 18th century France such as André-Charles Boulle (including the center table which when sold from the Riahi Collection at Christie's in 2000 made a world record for furniture by Boulle which still stands to this day), Martin Carlin (including the two celebrated meubles d'entre deux in this sale lot 1120), Jean-Henri Riesener, David Roentgen and R.V.L.C.