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A LOUIS XVI COMMODE DEMI-LUNE

STAMPED BY JOSEPH STOCKEL, LAST QUARTER 18TH CENTURY

Details
A LOUIS XVI COMMODE DEMI-LUNE
STAMPED BY JOSEPH STOCKEL, LAST QUARTER 18TH CENTURY
In mahogany and mahogany veneer with chased and gilded bronze ornamentation, the top in grey veined white marble with a raised edge, the front opening with a drawer in the waist and two drawers without a crosspiece, the sides with two side drawers and two leaves each revealing a shelf, the handles in falling drapery, the fluted uprights, on tapered legs encircled with twists and ending in acanthus leaves, stamped ‘J. STOCKEL' and “JME” on the two rear uprights
H. 90 cm. (35 ¹/₂ in.) ; L. 146 cm. (57 ¹/₂ in.) ; W. 62 cm. (24 ¹/₂ in.)
Joseph Stockel, master in 1775.
Provenance
Formerly collection of Comte Vigier.
Sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 9 April 1943, lot 61.
Sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 22 June 1982, lot 125.
Sale Artcurial, Paris, 12 July 2021, lot 34.

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Lot Essay

Joseph Stöckel and his work have long been considered a talented, but rather secondary, cabinetmaker, but in recent years they have been rediscovered, thanks in particular to Pierre Verlet's study in the Mobilier royal français (Volume I, pp. 36-43). Although his name was long subordinated to that of Benneman, in the context of the purchase of four monumental commodes for the Château de Compiègne (now in the Louvre OA 5507 and OA 5442 and in Fontainebleau F 1049 C), we know thanks to the author that Stöckel was the main designer of these sumptuous pieces of furniture. Probably commissioned initially by the Count of Provence, it was sold in 1786 to the Garde-Meuble Royal and subsequently modified by Benneman.

This study has enabled us to gain a better understanding of the style and redefine the body of work of Joseph Stöckel, a cabinetmaker of German origin who settled in Paris before 1769 and was made a master on 2 August 1775. He ran a workshop on rue de Charenton, where he remained until the Revolution, when he moved to rue des Fossés du Temple.
The furniture he made was very sober, almost severe in design, usually veneered in mahogany and decorated with refined gilded bronzes, intended to emphasise the purity of the forms of the furniture he created, as is the case with our chest of drawers. In keeping with the neoclassical taste that developed in the decorative arts from the 1760s onwards, he adopted a vocabulary borrowed from ancient art and shared with his contemporaries, such as the drapery motifs on the handles, These motifs can be found in friezes on several pieces of furniture by Martin Carlin, such as the secrétaire à abattant he made around 1780 (Musée du Louvre, OA 11176), or as handles on furniture by Pierre Garnier (bureau plat, circa 1765, Christie's London sale, 12 December 2002, lot 20).

Stöckel used this motif on several occasions, notably on a Louis XVI period sideboard, stamped ‘J. STOCKEL', dated circa 1780 and sold at Christie's in New York on 18 May 2006, lot 746.
Tapered legs, surrounded by ribbons, are one of Stöckel's favourite motifs, although they more often take the form of bundles of lictors, as for example on the chests of drawers delivered for the Count of Provence, later transformed by Guillaume Benneman and preserved in the Louvre, as mentioned above.