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拍品专文
Charles Cressent, maître in 1719.
Jacques Dubois, maître in 1742.
René Dubois, maître in 1757.
This striking pair of encoignures is a fascinating example of the practice of adapting high-quality and well-designed furnishings to current fashions in the eighteenth century. Most parts of these cabinets derive from an armoire en encoignure, or corner armoire; a rare form of similar use and design but of completely different proportions and scale. These encoignures were certainly adapted from such piece by Charles Cressent. Examples of such pieces by Cressent include an armoire preserved at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and one formerly in the collection of the Earl of Rosebery at Mentmore, see A. Pradère, Charles Cressent, Dijon, 2003, pp. 98 and 95, respectively. The above armoires are strikingly similar to these encoignures in decoration; the pattern of the amaranth veneer, the ormolu framing, mask, suspended trophies and shell-form mounts as well as the pronounced pediments and concave cornices are all characteristics shared among these works. A pair of almost identical encoignures of the same size and practically matching decoration is in the Wallace Collection (F100 and F101). Because of their identical decorative features and size, it is most likely that this pair and the Wallace pair were adapted from the same armoire en encoignure which, due to the shared similarities with the Getty and Mentmore piece, must have also been originally made by Charles Cressent.
Quintessentially early Louis XV in design, these armoires went out of fashion by the third quarter of the eighteenth century, by which time domestic interiors were much smaller and intimate. At the same time, a renewed interest in decoration during the reign of Louis XIV and the Régence was brewing and many pieces from these periods were altered and reinvented. The stamps on these encoignures suggest that these were reduced in size and changed in the Dubois workshop. The alterations could have been carried out towards the end of Jacques Dubois’ career or, more likely, after his son René took over the atelier but kept using his father’s stamp. In fact, from 1779 onward René was also a furniture retailer in addition to being a cabinet-maker and it has been suggested that he was responsible for the creation of the encoignures in the Wallace Collection as well, as those are also stamped I. DUBOIS, see F.J.B. Watson, Wallace Collection Catalogues: Catalogue of Furniture, London, 1956, pp. 68-69.
THE ROTHSCHILD COLLECTIONS IN VIENNA
The extraordinary art collection of the Austrian branch of the Rothschild family was carefully formed over many generations. It had already reached a considerable size in the mid-nineteenth century and the Katalog der Kunstsammlung des Freiherrn Anselm von Rothschild, compiled in 1866 and re-published in 1872, listed no fewer than 600 items, including two portraits by Frans Hals and the celebrated Rothschild prayerbook. After Anselm von Rothschild's death (d. 1874) the collection was split between his three sons Nathaniel (d. 1905), Ferdinand (d. 1898) and Salomon Albert (d. 1911; known as Albert). Ferdinand emigrated to England, where he constructed Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, and his share of Anselm's collection went there with him. The remainder of the Austrian collection was housed on the Theresianumgasse in Vienna, in Nathaniel's mansion designed by the architect Jean Girette, and at Albert's house on the Heugasse, almost opposite Nathaniel, as well as at the family's hunting lodge, Hohe Warte, and at Schloss Schillersdorf. The collection of furniture included several important exquisite examples of French ébénisterie, such as the Louis XVI commode by Jean-Henri Riesener from the Bibliothèque of King Louis XVI at Versailles, which was purchased by the French State and re-installed in situ at the château, and the Louis XVI regulateur de parquet by Ferdinand Berthoud, Balthazar Lieutaud and Philippe Caffièri, which was supplied to the Duc de Choiseul (sold from the collection of the Barons Nathaniel and Albert von Rothschild, Christie's London, 8 July 1999, lots 201 and 207). Together with various other items of French furniture, these encoignures were sent to the United States by Baroness Clarice von Rothschild (d. 1967) and subsequently sold to Rosenberg and Stiebel, Inc., New York, as was the case with the celebrated Branicki corner cupboard by Jacques Dubois, now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, illustrated in G. Wilson and C. Hess, Summary Catalogue of European Decorative Arts, J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 2001, p. 20, fig. 35.
Jacques Dubois, maître in 1742.
René Dubois, maître in 1757.
This striking pair of encoignures is a fascinating example of the practice of adapting high-quality and well-designed furnishings to current fashions in the eighteenth century. Most parts of these cabinets derive from an armoire en encoignure, or corner armoire; a rare form of similar use and design but of completely different proportions and scale. These encoignures were certainly adapted from such piece by Charles Cressent. Examples of such pieces by Cressent include an armoire preserved at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and one formerly in the collection of the Earl of Rosebery at Mentmore, see A. Pradère, Charles Cressent, Dijon, 2003, pp. 98 and 95, respectively. The above armoires are strikingly similar to these encoignures in decoration; the pattern of the amaranth veneer, the ormolu framing, mask, suspended trophies and shell-form mounts as well as the pronounced pediments and concave cornices are all characteristics shared among these works. A pair of almost identical encoignures of the same size and practically matching decoration is in the Wallace Collection (F100 and F101). Because of their identical decorative features and size, it is most likely that this pair and the Wallace pair were adapted from the same armoire en encoignure which, due to the shared similarities with the Getty and Mentmore piece, must have also been originally made by Charles Cressent.
Quintessentially early Louis XV in design, these armoires went out of fashion by the third quarter of the eighteenth century, by which time domestic interiors were much smaller and intimate. At the same time, a renewed interest in decoration during the reign of Louis XIV and the Régence was brewing and many pieces from these periods were altered and reinvented. The stamps on these encoignures suggest that these were reduced in size and changed in the Dubois workshop. The alterations could have been carried out towards the end of Jacques Dubois’ career or, more likely, after his son René took over the atelier but kept using his father’s stamp. In fact, from 1779 onward René was also a furniture retailer in addition to being a cabinet-maker and it has been suggested that he was responsible for the creation of the encoignures in the Wallace Collection as well, as those are also stamped I. DUBOIS, see F.J.B. Watson, Wallace Collection Catalogues: Catalogue of Furniture, London, 1956, pp. 68-69.
THE ROTHSCHILD COLLECTIONS IN VIENNA
The extraordinary art collection of the Austrian branch of the Rothschild family was carefully formed over many generations. It had already reached a considerable size in the mid-nineteenth century and the Katalog der Kunstsammlung des Freiherrn Anselm von Rothschild, compiled in 1866 and re-published in 1872, listed no fewer than 600 items, including two portraits by Frans Hals and the celebrated Rothschild prayerbook. After Anselm von Rothschild's death (d. 1874) the collection was split between his three sons Nathaniel (d. 1905), Ferdinand (d. 1898) and Salomon Albert (d. 1911; known as Albert). Ferdinand emigrated to England, where he constructed Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, and his share of Anselm's collection went there with him. The remainder of the Austrian collection was housed on the Theresianumgasse in Vienna, in Nathaniel's mansion designed by the architect Jean Girette, and at Albert's house on the Heugasse, almost opposite Nathaniel, as well as at the family's hunting lodge, Hohe Warte, and at Schloss Schillersdorf. The collection of furniture included several important exquisite examples of French ébénisterie, such as the Louis XVI commode by Jean-Henri Riesener from the Bibliothèque of King Louis XVI at Versailles, which was purchased by the French State and re-installed in situ at the château, and the Louis XVI regulateur de parquet by Ferdinand Berthoud, Balthazar Lieutaud and Philippe Caffièri, which was supplied to the Duc de Choiseul (sold from the collection of the Barons Nathaniel and Albert von Rothschild, Christie's London, 8 July 1999, lots 201 and 207). Together with various other items of French furniture, these encoignures were sent to the United States by Baroness Clarice von Rothschild (d. 1967) and subsequently sold to Rosenberg and Stiebel, Inc., New York, as was the case with the celebrated Branicki corner cupboard by Jacques Dubois, now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, illustrated in G. Wilson and C. Hess, Summary Catalogue of European Decorative Arts, J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 2001, p. 20, fig. 35.