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拍品专文
A masterpiece by Joseph Baumhauer, this superb bureau was executed at a moment of perfection in the decorative arts in France. Its harmonious proportions and balance of outline, scale and decoration demonstrate Joseph’s consummate skill, placing him firmly in the canon of the greatest ébenistes of the Ancien Régime. Only one other example of this specific form by Joseph, combining surrounds of lustrous tulipwood with precious panels of Japanese lacquer set into delicate ormolu frames is recorded, that sold from the legendary collection of Djahanguir Riahi; Christie’s, London, 6 December 2012, lot 30 (£1,721,250).
JOSEPH BAUMHAUER
French ébénisterie was greatly influenced by the arrival of hundreds of highly skilled emigrant cabinetmakers, who introduced various ingenious techniques for construction and marquetry. During the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century, many of these, including Pierre Gôle, André-Charles Boulle and Bernard van Risenburgh, hailed from the Northern and Southern Netherlands. The second half of the eighteenth century would see many German craftsmen arriving in the French capital, including the Royal cabinetmakers Jean-François Oeben and Jean-Henri Riesener. Joseph Baumhauer, generally known as Joseph, was one of the first German cabinetmakers to arrive in Paris, probably well before 1745, the date of his marriage. He had been granted special status and did not become maître but was made ébéniste privilégié du Roi around 1749, just as Jean-Pierre Latz had been ten years previously. This special position provided various tax advantages and permitted the practice of multiple trades in one workshop (J.-D. Augarde, 'Joseph Baumhauer, ébéniste privilegié du Roi', L'Estampille-L'Objet d'Art', June 1987, no. 204, pp. 15-16.).
Joseph worked almost exclusively for the marchands-merciers, innovative dealers of furniture and bronzes d'ameublement, most notably for Lazare Duvaux, Charles Darnault and Simon-Philippe Poirier, for whom he produced richly-decorated and luxurious pieces decorated in marquetry, lacquer, pietra dura and Sèvres porcelain. During the first part of his career he worked largely for Duvaux, and some of Joseph's pieces can be identified in Duvaux's Livre-Journal, compiled between 1749 and 1758, including the unique pupitre à écrire debout purchased by Karl, Count of Cobenzl (d. 1770) in 1758, sold from the renowned collection of Hubert de Givenchy, Christie's Monaco, 4 December 1993, lot 84 (R. Baarsen, 'Ebénisterie at the court of Charles de Lorraine', The Burlington Magazine, February, 2005, vol. CXLVII, p. 92). With its symmetrical Rococo mounts and balanced harmonious proportions, this beautiful cabinet-cum-writing desk is one of the earliest pieces in his distinctive rocaille assagie style, a more restrained Rococo or Transitional style, which he would perfect in the next decade. He was one of only a few cabinetmakers able to execute masterpieces in various different styles simultaneously. It is, for instance, intriguing that just before commencing work on the Cobenzl pupitre, Joseph had completed his most celebrated and daring piece: the great bureau plat for Ange-Laurent Lalive de Jully, produced around 1754-1756 and now at château de Chantilly (S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, figs. 85-89). This monumental and extremely rectilinear piece in ebony, richly mounted in gilt-bronze, is the earliest known piece in the experimental goût grec style, and could not be further removed from the light and colourful marquetry pupitre purchased by Cobenzl from Duvaux.
LACQUER FURNITURE BY JOSEPH
Of the precious materials employed by Joseph on his most luxurious and costly pieces, among the most celebrated is Japanese lacquer or 'Vieux Lacq'. Lacquer furniture generally incorporated specimens removed from antique imported coffers and screens and then supplied to a cabinetmaker by a marchand-mercier, and the art of adapting these components to domestic furniture was one of Joseph's principal specialties. Among his most accomplished Japanese lacquer pieces conceived at the outset of his career, and already fully demonstrating his genius, is a Rococo commode executed circa 1750-1755 for the marchand-mercier François-Charles Darnault, now preserved in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (obj. no. 55.DA.2).
The Riahi bureau is one of the small group of bureaux executed by Joseph from circa 1760 until his death in 1772. Its compact and delicately sinuous model was undoubtedly conceived by Simon-Philippe Poirier, for whom Joseph largely worked in the latter part of his career. Several examples are embellished with Sèvres porcelain plaques, a specialty of Poirier's output which he employed until his retirement in 1777, after which its use was continued with the same vigor by his successor, Dominique Daguerre. The earliest bureau of this type is probably that at preserved at Waddesdon Manor, which incorporates Sèvres plaques bearing factory date letters, the earliest specifying manufacture in 1760 (acc. no. 2335). Five other examples decorated with Sèvres porcelain plaques are known, their plaques dating up to 1770, including one in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry at Boughton House, which is closest to the Waddesdon example. Another, one of its porcelain plaques bearing the painter's mark of Charles-Louis Méraud the Younger and the date letter K for 1763, was sold from the Jean Rossignol Collection, hôtel Dassault, Paris, 13 December 2005, lot 122 (€6,874,575). Interestingly, the shape of the plaques to these two bureaux corresponds to those which adorn the Mlle. de Sens commode by BVRB; the clever ways by which the borders of Joseph’s bureau conceal its irregular shape illustrat the ingenuity and adaptation skills of the marchands-merciers in general, and Poirier in particular.
Besides the Riahi bureau, the only other bureau by Joseph incorporating Japanese lacquer is the example in the Grog-Carven bequest in the Louvre Museum, with an ebony, rather than tulipwood surround to the lacquer panels (inv. no. OA 10453). As with the examples embellished with Sèvres porcelain plaques, the lacquer elements were also almost certainly supplied by Poirier, who had a quasi monopoly on furniture mounted with precious materials in these years. The lacquer bureaux are embellished with most of the same mounts also used to border the porcelain plaques, some of which are exclusive to Joseph's furniture. Poirier clearly selected the mounts to follow and accentuate not only the complex sinuous shape of the top, frieze and legs, but also to expertly border the lacquer panels. The long framing mounts are gently molded and feature small clasps; those to the corners consist of long sweeping acanthus centered by trails; to the legs, Joseph applied a flat tapering mount exclusive to his work. On the 'Sèvres' bureaux, the mounts surrounding the plaques are more sturdy, as necessitated by the weight and fragility of the porcelain material. The mounts around the lacquer panels, by contrast, are far lighter, resulting in an even more harmonious chef d'oeuvre.
THE JOURDAN-BARRY COLLECTION
The Jourdan-Barry collection was assembled over more than a century through three generations, by Mafalda Jourdan (1862-1934), her son Raymond Jourdan Barry (1891-1968) (author of a landmark study of Provençal silver), and grandson Pierre (1926-2016). The collection was most celebrated for a superb collection of French silver which was memorialized in a study published by Galerie Kugel, and some of which was dispersed in landmark sales in 1992 and 2012 and in a special exhibition at Kugel. They also collected deeply and widely in French faïence, particularly from Moustiers and Marseille (where the family originated), as well as portrait miniatures, paintings, sculpture and Islamic art. Their collection of Moustiers faïence was ultimately donated to the Musée de Sèvres and then transferred to the city museum in Moustiers, while Pierre donated works to the Louvre, including an important fifteenth-century French sculpture of the Pietà.
JOSEPH BAUMHAUER
French ébénisterie was greatly influenced by the arrival of hundreds of highly skilled emigrant cabinetmakers, who introduced various ingenious techniques for construction and marquetry. During the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century, many of these, including Pierre Gôle, André-Charles Boulle and Bernard van Risenburgh, hailed from the Northern and Southern Netherlands. The second half of the eighteenth century would see many German craftsmen arriving in the French capital, including the Royal cabinetmakers Jean-François Oeben and Jean-Henri Riesener. Joseph Baumhauer, generally known as Joseph, was one of the first German cabinetmakers to arrive in Paris, probably well before 1745, the date of his marriage. He had been granted special status and did not become maître but was made ébéniste privilégié du Roi around 1749, just as Jean-Pierre Latz had been ten years previously. This special position provided various tax advantages and permitted the practice of multiple trades in one workshop (J.-D. Augarde, 'Joseph Baumhauer, ébéniste privilegié du Roi', L'Estampille-L'Objet d'Art', June 1987, no. 204, pp. 15-16.).
Joseph worked almost exclusively for the marchands-merciers, innovative dealers of furniture and bronzes d'ameublement, most notably for Lazare Duvaux, Charles Darnault and Simon-Philippe Poirier, for whom he produced richly-decorated and luxurious pieces decorated in marquetry, lacquer, pietra dura and Sèvres porcelain. During the first part of his career he worked largely for Duvaux, and some of Joseph's pieces can be identified in Duvaux's Livre-Journal, compiled between 1749 and 1758, including the unique pupitre à écrire debout purchased by Karl, Count of Cobenzl (d. 1770) in 1758, sold from the renowned collection of Hubert de Givenchy, Christie's Monaco, 4 December 1993, lot 84 (R. Baarsen, 'Ebénisterie at the court of Charles de Lorraine', The Burlington Magazine, February, 2005, vol. CXLVII, p. 92). With its symmetrical Rococo mounts and balanced harmonious proportions, this beautiful cabinet-cum-writing desk is one of the earliest pieces in his distinctive rocaille assagie style, a more restrained Rococo or Transitional style, which he would perfect in the next decade. He was one of only a few cabinetmakers able to execute masterpieces in various different styles simultaneously. It is, for instance, intriguing that just before commencing work on the Cobenzl pupitre, Joseph had completed his most celebrated and daring piece: the great bureau plat for Ange-Laurent Lalive de Jully, produced around 1754-1756 and now at château de Chantilly (S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, figs. 85-89). This monumental and extremely rectilinear piece in ebony, richly mounted in gilt-bronze, is the earliest known piece in the experimental goût grec style, and could not be further removed from the light and colourful marquetry pupitre purchased by Cobenzl from Duvaux.
LACQUER FURNITURE BY JOSEPH
Of the precious materials employed by Joseph on his most luxurious and costly pieces, among the most celebrated is Japanese lacquer or 'Vieux Lacq'. Lacquer furniture generally incorporated specimens removed from antique imported coffers and screens and then supplied to a cabinetmaker by a marchand-mercier, and the art of adapting these components to domestic furniture was one of Joseph's principal specialties. Among his most accomplished Japanese lacquer pieces conceived at the outset of his career, and already fully demonstrating his genius, is a Rococo commode executed circa 1750-1755 for the marchand-mercier François-Charles Darnault, now preserved in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (obj. no. 55.DA.2).
The Riahi bureau is one of the small group of bureaux executed by Joseph from circa 1760 until his death in 1772. Its compact and delicately sinuous model was undoubtedly conceived by Simon-Philippe Poirier, for whom Joseph largely worked in the latter part of his career. Several examples are embellished with Sèvres porcelain plaques, a specialty of Poirier's output which he employed until his retirement in 1777, after which its use was continued with the same vigor by his successor, Dominique Daguerre. The earliest bureau of this type is probably that at preserved at Waddesdon Manor, which incorporates Sèvres plaques bearing factory date letters, the earliest specifying manufacture in 1760 (acc. no. 2335). Five other examples decorated with Sèvres porcelain plaques are known, their plaques dating up to 1770, including one in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry at Boughton House, which is closest to the Waddesdon example. Another, one of its porcelain plaques bearing the painter's mark of Charles-Louis Méraud the Younger and the date letter K for 1763, was sold from the Jean Rossignol Collection, hôtel Dassault, Paris, 13 December 2005, lot 122 (€6,874,575). Interestingly, the shape of the plaques to these two bureaux corresponds to those which adorn the Mlle. de Sens commode by BVRB; the clever ways by which the borders of Joseph’s bureau conceal its irregular shape illustrat the ingenuity and adaptation skills of the marchands-merciers in general, and Poirier in particular.
Besides the Riahi bureau, the only other bureau by Joseph incorporating Japanese lacquer is the example in the Grog-Carven bequest in the Louvre Museum, with an ebony, rather than tulipwood surround to the lacquer panels (inv. no. OA 10453). As with the examples embellished with Sèvres porcelain plaques, the lacquer elements were also almost certainly supplied by Poirier, who had a quasi monopoly on furniture mounted with precious materials in these years. The lacquer bureaux are embellished with most of the same mounts also used to border the porcelain plaques, some of which are exclusive to Joseph's furniture. Poirier clearly selected the mounts to follow and accentuate not only the complex sinuous shape of the top, frieze and legs, but also to expertly border the lacquer panels. The long framing mounts are gently molded and feature small clasps; those to the corners consist of long sweeping acanthus centered by trails; to the legs, Joseph applied a flat tapering mount exclusive to his work. On the 'Sèvres' bureaux, the mounts surrounding the plaques are more sturdy, as necessitated by the weight and fragility of the porcelain material. The mounts around the lacquer panels, by contrast, are far lighter, resulting in an even more harmonious chef d'oeuvre.
THE JOURDAN-BARRY COLLECTION
The Jourdan-Barry collection was assembled over more than a century through three generations, by Mafalda Jourdan (1862-1934), her son Raymond Jourdan Barry (1891-1968) (author of a landmark study of Provençal silver), and grandson Pierre (1926-2016). The collection was most celebrated for a superb collection of French silver which was memorialized in a study published by Galerie Kugel, and some of which was dispersed in landmark sales in 1992 and 2012 and in a special exhibition at Kugel. They also collected deeply and widely in French faïence, particularly from Moustiers and Marseille (where the family originated), as well as portrait miniatures, paintings, sculpture and Islamic art. Their collection of Moustiers faïence was ultimately donated to the Musée de Sèvres and then transferred to the city museum in Moustiers, while Pierre donated works to the Louvre, including an important fifteenth-century French sculpture of the Pietà.