AFTER A MODEL BY PIERRE-ETIENNE LEVASSEUR OR LEVASSEUR THE YOUNGER, 20TH CENTURY, POSSIBLY INCORPORATING EARLIER ELEMENTS

This sumptuous pair of meubles d'appui is almost en suite with a pair of cabinets stamped by Levasseur in the collection of the Duke of Wellington at Stratfield Saye, Berkshire. Illustrated in F.J.B. Watson, 'The Great Dukes Taste For French Furniture', Apollo, Vol. CII, July 1975, p. 47, fig. 8, these latter cabinets - together with a further set of four bibliothèque basses, two meubles d'entre-deux and four pedestals all by Levasseur - were acquired by the triumphant 1st Duke of Wellington from Le Chevalier Féréol de Bonnemaison, circa 1817. An otherwise little-documented marchand-mercier, Le Chevalier is now thought to have been responsible for supplying much of the 'Buhl' furniture that found its way into English collections in the early nineteenth century, possibly working alongside Edward Holmes Baldock (d.1843). This includes a further pair of closely related cabinets by Levasseur in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch at Boughton House, Northamptonshire, as well as a larger pair of bas d'armoire formerly in the Buccleuch collection, which now form part of the Grog Bequest to the Musée du Louvre. It is interesting to note, therefore, that Buccleuch, like Wellington, is known to have been in Paris shortly after Waterloo. Another pair of bas d'armoire, originally from the Marquess of Londonderry's collection and now in a Parisian private collection, were also probably supplied by Le Chevalier. A related set of four stamped by Levasseur was sold anonymously at Sotheby's New York, 7 May 1983, lot 212 and is illustrated in A. Pradère, French Furniture Makers, Paris, 1989, p. 309. Geoffrey de Bellaigue suggests that the design of the marquetry on the drawers may have been inspired by or copied from engravings of a garden parterre de broderie, which were published in eighteenth-century books on architecture and gardens by Blondel, Liger, d'Aviler and others, see G. de Bellaigue, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, London, 1974, Vol. I, p.190.