BY ADAM WEISWEILER, CIRCA 1787-90

Recalling the splendours of the classical interiors of Ancient Rome, this jewel-like secretaire delicately painted with grotesques, inset with striking biscuit medallions and framed by delicately-tooled ormolu borders, belongs to a luxurious group of polychrome-painted furniture by Adam Weisweiler made for the sumptuous and intimate neoclassical cabinets installed in the choicest Royal and noble residences of the late 1780s.

The rare and unusual painted arabesque decoration on paper surrounding biscuit plaques is particular to a small and prestigious corpus of furniture dating to the late 1780s in the most sophisticated and avant-garde taste. Inspired by exciting discoveries at Pompeii and Herculaneum in the 18th century, this striking new style was an interpretation of the vividly preserved wall paintings found in the remains of the the ancient villas. A very closely related secretaire stamped Weisweiler (maître 26 March 1778), formerly in the collection of the Archduke Maximilian of Austria (1895–1952) at Castel Miramare, Trieste, and now preserved in the Hofmobiliendepot, Vienna, has identical Sèvres biscuit medallions and painted decoration by the same hand as the present secretaire, with some very minor variations to the design and on a light green as opposed to a red ground. The Vienna secretaire, given to Maximilian’s wife Charlotte of Belgium by Napoleon III, is also of the same form as the present lot, although it is more richly mounted. A bureau plat stamped Weisweiler formerly in the collection of Alfred de Rothschild (sold Sotheby’s, Monaco, 4 December 1992, lot 7) has a similar gallery to the Vienna secretaire and closely related polychrome-painted decoration on a light green ground and was possibly made en suite. The Sèvres biscuit plaques on these secretaires as well as the painted decoration also relate closely to the great jewel cabinet by Ferdinand Schwerdfeger supplied to Marie Antoinette in 1787 for the chambre de la reine at the château de Versailles (OA 5515). Designed by Jean-Demosthene Dugourc and with identical Sèvres plaques to the present lot and related painted arabesque panels by Jacques-Joseph Degault, the jewel cabinet completes the corpus and is indicative of the type of distinction and status the patron of the secretaire most certainly possessed.

The use of Sèvres jasperware medallions in imitation of Wedgwood and painted decoration on a cabinet by Weisweiler inevitably recalls the work of the marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre who pioneered this decorative scheme and from 1787 was Wedgwood’s representative in Paris. The subjects depicted on the medallions, made by Sèvres after the Wedgwood design, appear on pieces in the Louis XVI Sèvres service and on the Sèvres Factory registers between 1775 and 1783 and are entitled offrande à l'Hymen and offrande à l'amour (see G. de Bellaigue, The Louis XVI Service, London, 1986, pp. 244-245). Indeed the 1788 French edition of Wedgwood's catalogues includes plaques of the same subject of 4in. (10cm.) diameter entitled sacrifice à l'Amour no. 169, and sacrifice à l'Hymen no. 170. The limited variety of designs for these plaques explains why each is repeated twice.
As well as the Pompeiian decorative scheme employed, the form of the secretaire is also conceived in the ‘antique’ fashion and is identical, with its fluted columns on fluted bulbous supports, tooled ormolu frame, frieze drawer with shaped central panel, fluted columnar legs, and shaped marble stretcher to two lacquer secretaires stamped by Weisweiler and supplied in the late 18^th century by Dominique Daguerre to the 2^nd Earl Spencer, currently preserved at Althorp House, Northamptonshire, as well as a further lacquer secretaire attributed to Weisweiler, formerly in a Rothschild collection and sold Christie’s London, 2 November 1997, lot 93.

The ‘grotesque’ decoration in the Pompeiian manner seen on the secretaire and the related pieces almost certainly derives from the decorative schemes for boudoirs Turcs introduced for the comte d’Artois from the late 1770s. A painted door panel from the 1781 boudoir Turc of the comte d’Artois at the château de Versailles, currently preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. No. 07.225.458b) and illustrated here, presents a very closely related decorative scheme to that on the secretaire. With a jasperware oval medallion in an imitation ormolu border and arabesque motifs hung with floral swags and interspersed with figures, this design by the frères Rousseau displays clear similarities to the decoration of the secretaire. While the door panel’s decoration is ‘à la turque’, as evidenced by the turbaned figures, the secretaire’s decoration is, in accordance with its later date, ‘à l’antique’ and this represents clearly the evolution in style in the five or so years between the creation of the panel and the execution of the secretaire. The frères Rousseau, as Jean -Siméon Rousseau de la Rottière (1747–1820) and Jules-Hugues Rousseau (1743–1806) were known, executed other elaborate decorative schemes in the Pompeiian style similar to that on the secretaire, including Marie Antoinette’s boudoir d’argent, executed at the chateau de Fontainebleau circa 1785-86.

Another candidate for the design of the secretaire could be Dominique Dugourc and François-Joseph Bélanger (1744-1818) who worked on the design and decoration of the château de Bagatelle for the comte d'Artois in 1777. In 1789 Bélanger was commissioned by the courtesan Anne-Marie Dervieux to extend and improve her hôtel particulier on the rue Chantereine in the Etruscan manner. While the doors of her dining room were decorated with arabesques and allegorical vignettes in the manner of Dugourc, the bathroom, illustrated here in a 1790 watercolour by Detournelle, was painted in a similar decorative scheme to the present lot, with figures and cameos à l’antique on a Wedgwood blue ground.

A link to the present lot is tantalisingly suggested by the record in Madame Dervieux’s hôtel of two ‘secrétaires de bois des Iles peints en ornements’, a description which would fit the present lot. One of Bélanger’s other clients, the trésorier général of the Navy, Baldart de Saint James, owned in 1787 ‘un secrétaire de femme en bois peint et verni arabesque garni en bronze doré, balustres ouvert et ride, 360 livres’. This description is also tantalisingly close to that of our own secretaire and suggests at the very least that Bélanger was involved in the design and production of secretaires decorated in the neoclassical Pompeiian manner. Interestingly, Bélanger would go on to marry his former client Madame Dervieux in 1791.