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Lot Essay
Roger Vandercruse 'dit' Lacroix (1727-1799), maître in 1755.
This secretaire, its front and sides covered in panels adapted from a Coromandel screen, is a rare example of Parisian furniture in the Louis XV 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 Duvaux, 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).
Roger Van der Cruse ranks amongst the most notable 18th century Parisian ébénistes and counted amongst his clients the marchand-mercier Simon-Philippe Poirier, Madame du Barry at Louveciennes, the Garde-Meuble and the duc d'Orléans. Initially active in the execution of furniture in the mature rococo style, RVLC is probably best known for his production of elegant pieces in the 'Transitional' style of the 1760s and 1770s such as this secretaire. A secretaire of closely related form and with identical angle mounts was sold Christie's London, 10 July 2014, lot 54 (£170,500). Fascinatingly, this secretaire and another almost identical example in the Louvre are decorated with chinoiserie marquetry to the exterior, indicating that this model of secretaire was associated with the taste for Asian and Asian-inspired works of art in the RVLC workshop.
This secretaire, its front and sides covered in panels adapted from a Coromandel screen, is a rare example of Parisian furniture in the Louis XV 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 Duvaux, 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).
Roger Van der Cruse ranks amongst the most notable 18th century Parisian ébénistes and counted amongst his clients the marchand-mercier Simon-Philippe Poirier, Madame du Barry at Louveciennes, the Garde-Meuble and the duc d'Orléans. Initially active in the execution of furniture in the mature rococo style, RVLC is probably best known for his production of elegant pieces in the 'Transitional' style of the 1760s and 1770s such as this secretaire. A secretaire of closely related form and with identical angle mounts was sold Christie's London, 10 July 2014, lot 54 (£170,500). Fascinatingly, this secretaire and another almost identical example in the Louvre are decorated with chinoiserie marquetry to the exterior, indicating that this model of secretaire was associated with the taste for Asian and Asian-inspired works of art in the RVLC workshop.