BY PIERRE VENTE, THIRD QUARTER 18TH CENTURY

This rare Royal leather coffer was almost certainly delivered by the Menus Plaisirs for the use of the Filles de France, daughters of Louis XV. Pierre Vente (b. 1722, active until 1792), who conceived the present piece, initially worked under the patronage of the Marechal de Richelieu, and in 1753 became Relieur (bookbinder) for the Menus Plaisirs du Roi and in 1764. Each year he supplied several such coffers to Mesdames, who passed them onto their entourage when they were considered too old. Madame Marie-Adelaide de France (d. 1800), fourth daughter of Louis XV, was herself a noted bibliophile, amassing a library of more than 10,000 volumes, all bound in red morocco leather.

A closely related coffer supplied to one of Mesdames, with the same coat-of-arms, from the Musée de Cluny, Paris, previously in the collection of Baron Arthur de Rothschild, was exhibited in ‘Louis XV, un moment de perfection de l’art Français’, Paris, 1974, cat. 551. Other closely related coffers to this example include one sold from the collection of the 5th Earl of Rosebery, Mentmore Towers, Buckinghamshire, Sotheby’s house sale, 1977, lot 109, and another sold from the collection of Jean-Louis Remilleux, previously in the collection of the comte and comtesse Niel, Christie's, Paris, 28-29 September 2015, lot 400. A further related example bearing arms of Marie Leszczynska, previously in the collection of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor can be found in the première antichambre de Madame Victoire at the Château de Versailles (Inv. V 5029).