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Lot Essay
Charles Topino, maître in 1773.
COROMANDEL LACQUERED FURNITURE IN PARIS
This secretaire, its front and sides covered in panels adapted from a Coromandel screen, is a rare example of Parisian furniture in the Louis XVI style covered in Coromandel lacquer exported from China. Coromandel lacquer, produced in Henan Province and imported to Europe by way of India’s Coromandel Coast, had been present on the French market since the turn of the eighteenth century, albeit in small quantities, with stock inventories of marchands-merciers during the first half of the century consistently recording only a few objects per inventory. French furniture incorporating Chinese Coromandel lacquer is rare, due in large part to its inherent fragility. The technique, which was typically used to create large screens of six, eight or twelve panels, involves carefully applying a primer of clay and several layers of black lacquer to each side of a pine panel, before carefully gouging away areas lacquer and filling in the resulting wells or channels with color, in a process similar to champlevé enamelwork.
The resulting panels, though attractive to French collectors for their novel, vibrant colors, were inherently difficult for French artisans to saw through and adapt without disrupting their decoration. Where Coromandel lacquer does appear in the stocks of the Parisian marchands-merciers, it is often linked with the mention that it is damaged: in 1755, the mercer Simon de la Hoguette records forty pieces of coromandel lacquer as endommagées and Duveaux, the marchand who frequently worked with Bernard II van Risenburgh (BVRB) mentions four such panels in 1758 (T. Wolvesperges, Le Meuble Français en Laque au XVIIIe Siècle, Paris, 2000, p. 55).
CHARLES TOPINO AND THE STYLE D’UTENSILES
The lacquer to the front of this secrétaire depict a variety of precious and scholarly objects deriving from the traditional Chinese ‘Eight Precious Things’ and ‘Hundred Antiques’ motifs, and relate directly to Topino’s signature marquetry work in the style called d’utensiles. As a tradesman, Topino specialized in the production of light furniture enriched with pictorial marquetry, often in the form of still-lives inspired by the objects depicted on Chinese screens. He was often employed as specialist marqueteur by marchands such as Héricourt, Dautriche, Migeon, Denizot, Delorme, Tuart, Boudin and Moreau, and also thrived as a supplier of marquetry panels to his fellow ébénistes such as Pioniez and Nicolas Petit as well as the marchand-ébéniste and close collaborator of Topino’s, Léonard Boudin. The latter’s livre de commandes refers to a significant number of tables à marqueterie de vases, supplied by Topino between 1772 and 1774. This style of still-life marquetry was apparently popular, as attested to by the number of pieces still extant, and its origins can be traced to direct inspiration from screens of the type adapted into the present secrétaire. It is curious to note, however, that this style gained popularity just as Coromandel was disappearing from the Parisian furniture scene.
MARIE-CHARLOTTE-CONSTANCE SAY, PRINCESS AMEDEE DE BROGLIE
The secrétaire is recorded in the collection of the French socialite Mary Say (1857-1943), heir to the Say sugar refineries, who became known as the princesse Amédée de Broglie after her 1875 marriage to Henri Amédée de Broglie, prince de Broglie. The couple resided at the hôtel de Broglie-Haussonville in Paris and the château de Chaumont-sur-Loire, which the princess had bought with her inheritance in 1875 at the age of seventeen, and donated to the state in 1938. In 1930, thirteen years after the Prince’s death, the 72-year-old princess became a tabloid sensation when she remarried prince Luís Fernando de Orleans y Borbón, the former Spanish infante who was 41 at the time, and thus became princess of Orléans and Bourbon.
COROMANDEL LACQUERED FURNITURE IN PARIS
This secretaire, its front and sides covered in panels adapted from a Coromandel screen, is a rare example of Parisian furniture in the Louis XVI style covered in Coromandel lacquer exported from China. Coromandel lacquer, produced in Henan Province and imported to Europe by way of India’s Coromandel Coast, had been present on the French market since the turn of the eighteenth century, albeit in small quantities, with stock inventories of marchands-merciers during the first half of the century consistently recording only a few objects per inventory. French furniture incorporating Chinese Coromandel lacquer is rare, due in large part to its inherent fragility. The technique, which was typically used to create large screens of six, eight or twelve panels, involves carefully applying a primer of clay and several layers of black lacquer to each side of a pine panel, before carefully gouging away areas lacquer and filling in the resulting wells or channels with color, in a process similar to champlevé enamelwork.
The resulting panels, though attractive to French collectors for their novel, vibrant colors, were inherently difficult for French artisans to saw through and adapt without disrupting their decoration. Where Coromandel lacquer does appear in the stocks of the Parisian marchands-merciers, it is often linked with the mention that it is damaged: in 1755, the mercer Simon de la Hoguette records forty pieces of coromandel lacquer as endommagées and Duveaux, the marchand who frequently worked with Bernard II van Risenburgh (BVRB) mentions four such panels in 1758 (T. Wolvesperges, Le Meuble Français en Laque au XVIIIe Siècle, Paris, 2000, p. 55).
CHARLES TOPINO AND THE STYLE D’UTENSILES
The lacquer to the front of this secrétaire depict a variety of precious and scholarly objects deriving from the traditional Chinese ‘Eight Precious Things’ and ‘Hundred Antiques’ motifs, and relate directly to Topino’s signature marquetry work in the style called d’utensiles. As a tradesman, Topino specialized in the production of light furniture enriched with pictorial marquetry, often in the form of still-lives inspired by the objects depicted on Chinese screens. He was often employed as specialist marqueteur by marchands such as Héricourt, Dautriche, Migeon, Denizot, Delorme, Tuart, Boudin and Moreau, and also thrived as a supplier of marquetry panels to his fellow ébénistes such as Pioniez and Nicolas Petit as well as the marchand-ébéniste and close collaborator of Topino’s, Léonard Boudin. The latter’s livre de commandes refers to a significant number of tables à marqueterie de vases, supplied by Topino between 1772 and 1774. This style of still-life marquetry was apparently popular, as attested to by the number of pieces still extant, and its origins can be traced to direct inspiration from screens of the type adapted into the present secrétaire. It is curious to note, however, that this style gained popularity just as Coromandel was disappearing from the Parisian furniture scene.
MARIE-CHARLOTTE-CONSTANCE SAY, PRINCESS AMEDEE DE BROGLIE
The secrétaire is recorded in the collection of the French socialite Mary Say (1857-1943), heir to the Say sugar refineries, who became known as the princesse Amédée de Broglie after her 1875 marriage to Henri Amédée de Broglie, prince de Broglie. The couple resided at the hôtel de Broglie-Haussonville in Paris and the château de Chaumont-sur-Loire, which the princess had bought with her inheritance in 1875 at the age of seventeen, and donated to the state in 1938. In 1930, thirteen years after the Prince’s death, the 72-year-old princess became a tabloid sensation when she remarried prince Luís Fernando de Orleans y Borbón, the former Spanish infante who was 41 at the time, and thus became princess of Orléans and Bourbon.