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ESTAMPILLE DE BERNARD II VAN RISENBURGH DIT B.V.R.B., VERS 1753
细节
PAIRE D'ENCOIGNURES D'ÉPOQUE LOUIS XV
ESTAMPILLE DE BERNARD II VAN RISENBURGH DIT B.V.R.B., VERS 1753
En bois laqué noir, marqueterie de bois de rose et de bois de violette et ornementation de bronze ciselé et doré, le plateau de marbre brocatelle d'Espagne, la bordure supérieure appliquée d'une coquille en agrafe, les montants mouvementés ornés de feuilles d'acanthe, l’intérieur ouvert à deux tablettes à décor en bois de bout de rinceaux feuillagés et fleuris, le montant arrière chanfreiné orné de chutes de rinceaux feuillagés, reposant sur un pied central en façade orné de concrétions rocailles ajourées et flanqué de volutes, chacune estampillée 'B.V.R.B' et deux fois 'JME' sous la traverse arrière, l'une porte deux marques en creux 'IW' sous le marbre
H. 82,5 cm. (32 ¼ in.) ; L. 40 cm. (15 ¾ in.) ; P. 29 cm. (11 ½ in.)
Bernard II van Risenburgh, reçu maître en 1735.
ESTAMPILLE DE BERNARD II VAN RISENBURGH DIT B.V.R.B., VERS 1753
En bois laqué noir, marqueterie de bois de rose et de bois de violette et ornementation de bronze ciselé et doré, le plateau de marbre brocatelle d'Espagne, la bordure supérieure appliquée d'une coquille en agrafe, les montants mouvementés ornés de feuilles d'acanthe, l’intérieur ouvert à deux tablettes à décor en bois de bout de rinceaux feuillagés et fleuris, le montant arrière chanfreiné orné de chutes de rinceaux feuillagés, reposant sur un pied central en façade orné de concrétions rocailles ajourées et flanqué de volutes, chacune estampillée 'B.V.R.B' et deux fois 'JME' sous la traverse arrière, l'une porte deux marques en creux 'IW' sous le marbre
H. 82,5 cm. (32 ¼ in.) ; L. 40 cm. (15 ¾ in.) ; P. 29 cm. (11 ½ in.)
Bernard II van Risenburgh, reçu maître en 1735.
来源
Très certainement livrée à Madame de Pompadour au Château de Crécy, le 20 septembre 1753 ;
Collection Paul Dutasta ;
Sa vente, Galerie Georges Petit, 3 et 4 juin 1926, lot 145 ;
Acquis de la vente précédente par Simon Patiño (1860-1947) ; offert en cadeau à
Doña Graziella Patiño de Ortiz Linares (1900-1980) et Son Excellence Don Jorge Ortiz Linares (1894 - 1965), Hôtel Blumenthal, Paris, grand salon ;
Puis par descendance.
Collection Paul Dutasta ;
Sa vente, Galerie Georges Petit, 3 et 4 juin 1926, lot 145 ;
Acquis de la vente précédente par Simon Patiño (1860-1947) ; offert en cadeau à
Doña Graziella Patiño de Ortiz Linares (1900-1980) et Son Excellence Don Jorge Ortiz Linares (1894 - 1965), Hôtel Blumenthal, Paris, grand salon ;
Puis par descendance.
出版
L. Duvaux, L. Courajod, Livre-journal de Lazare Duvaux [...]. Tome 2, Paris, 1873, p. 171.
Catalogue de vente, Collection Paul Dutasta, ancien ambassadeur, Me F. Lair-Dubreuil et Me A. Desvouges, Paris, 1926, p. 86, lot 145, et pl. XXXIV (ill.).
P. Levallois, G. d'Angélis (dir.), "Les ébénistes du XVIIIe siècle français", Collection Connaissances des Arts grands artistes d'autrefois, Paris, 1963, p. 81, fig. 4 (ill.).
G. A. H Comte de Reiset, Le Château de Crécy et Madame de Pompadour, Chartres, 2022, p. 36.
Bibliographie comparative :
Cat. exp. Château de Versailles, Madame de Pompadour et les arts, Versailles, 2002, pp. 346-351.
C. Jones, Madame de Pompadour, Images of a mistress, London, 2003, p. 96, p. 119.
Catalogue de vente, Collection Paul Dutasta, ancien ambassadeur, Me F. Lair-Dubreuil et Me A. Desvouges, Paris, 1926, p. 86, lot 145, et pl. XXXIV (ill.).
P. Levallois, G. d'Angélis (dir.), "Les ébénistes du XVIIIe siècle français", Collection Connaissances des Arts grands artistes d'autrefois, Paris, 1963, p. 81, fig. 4 (ill.).
G. A. H Comte de Reiset, Le Château de Crécy et Madame de Pompadour, Chartres, 2022, p. 36.
Bibliographie comparative :
Cat. exp. Château de Versailles, Madame de Pompadour et les arts, Versailles, 2002, pp. 346-351.
C. Jones, Madame de Pompadour, Images of a mistress, London, 2003, p. 96, p. 119.
更多详情
A PAIR OF LOUIS XV ORMOLU-MOUNTED TULIPWOOD, KINGWOOD AND EBONISED ENCOIGNURES, STAMPED BY BERNARD II VAN RISENBURGH, KNOWN AS B.V.R.B., CIRCA 1753
On 20 September 1753, this pair of encoignures (corner cupboards) stamped by Bernard II Van Risenburgh crossed the threshold of the Château de Crécy (fig. 1) to take their place in the apartments of Madame de Pompadour. Some time earlier, the Marquise had turned to the eminent Parisian marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux (1703-1758) to commission these precious pieces of furniture. On the day of delivery, the corner cupboards were precisely described in the dealer’s daybook as follows:
20 September 1753:
“1520. – Mme la Marq. de POMPADOUR: Sent to Crécy (...) ‘Two open encoignures on deer-foot legs, japanned, mounted with gilt bronze, the interiors veneered with satinwood decorated with flowers, topped with Brocatelle marble, 400 livres.’”
The high level of detail contained in this description allows the present pair to be identified with certainty; it is also what elevates them above the other corner cupboards listed in the daybook, placing them among the true masterpieces of their kind. The terms “open” and “on deer-foot legs” draw attention to their highly unusual form: they are open corner cupboards, whereas contemporary examples generally feature one or more doors. As such, they reveal the refinement of their marquetry-decorated rear uprights and the remarkable serpentine-shaped lower shelf rails. They also appear to rest upon a single elegant and subtly curved front leg, while the uprights discreetly support the structure at the rear. Behind this bold composition stands the leading tastemaker of her age, the woman who gave her name to a colour and a style, and who would only a few years later usher in the neo-classical movement: Madame de Pompadour.
Lazare Duvaux and Madame de Pompadour
The livre-journal (daybook) maintained by Duvaux between 1748 and 1758 reveals the exceptional extent of their relationship: the Marquise was among his most important and loyal clients. He served as her trusted supplier and remained in constant communication with her. Duvaux furnished a substantial portion of the furniture for her residences at the Hôtel d’Évreux, Bellevue, Crécy and Versailles; his records include more than a dozen purchases for Crécy in October 1752 alone and nearly twenty for her residence at Champs in October 1758. Among the most celebrated commissions are a night table attributed to BVRB now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1985.313.1), and a pair of Sèvres vases “à têtes d’éléphant” preserved in the Walters Art Museum (VO.34, 48.1796–48.1797). Holding a key political role at the heart of government, akin to that of a minister, the Marquise also commissioned numerous diplomatic gifts destined for foreign sovereigns and ambassadors from him, including presents for the Duke of Zweibrücken in 1754, the Duchess Strozzi in 1755 and Empress Maria Theresa of Austria in 1758.
Before becoming the essential intermediary between the Court and the most accomplished craftsmen of his day, Duvaux supplied workshops with exotic imported materials and products from European manufactories, including porcelain, crystal, lacquer and ivory. In the very year our pair of corner cupboards was delivered, Duvaux supplied Madame de Pompadour with the complete ‘Monkey Orchestra’ composed of numerous porcelain musician monkeys modelled by Johann Joachim Kändler and Peter Reinicke at Meissen, today preserved in the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, Toronto. When the French Court granted the Vincennes manufactory a twenty-year monopoly on the production of porcelain “in the Saxon manner”, the marchand-mercier visited the factory weekly to advise craftsmen and inspect production.
Duvaux’s daybook almost reads as a biography of the Marquise: month by month, her commissions reflect the evolution of her taste and ambitions. Her well-known love of luxury prompted orders ranging from jewels and magnificent diamond parures worth nearly two million livres to collars bearing her arms for her dogs. From 1756 onward, as she sought to improve her relationship with the Church in order to strengthen her position with the Queen, commissions for crucifixes adorned with precious stones and other devotional objects multiplied in the records. These efforts ultimately proved successful, and in February she was appointed Dame du Palais to the Queen, a distinction she appears to celebrate in her magnificent portrait by François Boucher painted the same year. To her left in that painting stands a small writing table by BVRB, probably supplied by Lazare Duvaux, whose curves and rosewood marquetry framed by kingwood closely echo the present pair of corner cupboards.
Far more than a mere supplier, Duvaux selected works, put together ensembles, coordinated craftsmen and orchestrated the decorative schemes of the Marquise’s interiors. Like other marchands-merciers, he sought to maintain exclusive relationships with his clients and therefore rarely recorded the names of the ébénistes involved. In Duvaux’s daybook, BVRB’s works appear simply as “furniture of the highest quality”, produced by a “skilled artist” named “Bernard”.
‘Bernard’ in the Service of Madame de Pompadour
The son of a German cabinet-maker specialising in clock cases, Bernard Van Risenburgh adapted his family name from Vleeschouwer and established his own workshop in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine in 1733. He stamped his furniture with the enigmatic mark “BVRB”, and by the late 1720s his work had already acquired a reputation for exceptional quality.
The oak carcass of the present corner cupboards, rigorously constructed, differs from the more commonplace softwood structures generally employed during the period. Above all, this pair perfectly embodies the highly personal and distinctive style developed by the ébéniste at the height of his career. Its marquetry is executed in end-grain wood, cut perpendicular to the grain, creating powerful contrasts of colour enhanced by ormolu mounts found on no other maker’s furniture. Although BVRB is especially renowned for incorporating innovative materials such as lacquer and porcelain into his furniture, he is also credited with reintroducing floral marquetry inspired by the legacy of André-Charles Boulle. Here, highly characteristic bouquets and flowering branches of dark end-grain kingwood stand out against a luminous ground of rosewood laid in opposing grain patterns. Duvaux’s daybook records the cabinet-maker’s first rosewood furniture in 1749 and his most important floral marquetry commissions between September 1748 and March 1762; the delivery of the present pair in September 1753 therefore fits perfectly within this period.
These marquetry panels are framed by a japanned and black-painted façade, almost certainly designed to harmonise with a larger decorative ensemble. Indeed, Duvaux’s daybook frequently records suites of matching furniture delivered together. The present black-japanned corner cupboards were therefore almost certainly intended to accompany other lacquer-style furnishings, such as the fall-front desk (fig. 2) and secrétaire (fig. 3) in Japanese lacquer by BVRB supplied to the Marquise three years later in 1756, formerly in the collection of Mr and Mrs Riahi and sold at Christie’s, London, 6 December 2012, lots 20 and 25.
Beyond their similarly curved outlines, which embody the rocaille style in its most accomplished and most restrained form, these furnishings share several closely related ormolu mounts with the present pair. Designed by BVRB himself, some of these mounts function almost as a signature motif, appearing in various forms, notably a cartouche composed of a scrolling shell flanked by acanthus leaves and surmounted by an asymmetrical flourish. It appears at the centre of the tri-lobed aprons of these pieces, as well as on a corner cupboard sold at Christie’s Paris, 19 June 1999, lot 81, on a Coromandel lacquer corner cupboard in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1983.185.2a, b), and on the front of a night table also preserved in the Metropolitan Museum (1985.313.1), which displays comparable marquetry and serpentine shelf rails.
Across all these pieces, BVRB protected the edges of legs and aprons with slender gilt-bronze mouldings, more restrained and elongated, representing an almost tempered form of rocaille ornament. The works of the ébéniste remained an integral part of Madame de Pompadour’s surroundings until the end of her life. Only months before her death in 1764, she posed for François-Hubert Drouais before a bookcase almost certainly made by Bernard II Van Risenburgh (fig. 4). Open and japanned black in imitation of lacquer, this bookcase, together with the work table shown beside her, appears almost designed to complement the present pair of corner cupboards.
The Château de Crécy
Among her eight residences, Madame de Pompadour held particular affection for the Château de Crécy, presented to her by Louis XV in 1746. Located near Dreux, it was her most important residence and remains one of the least familiar to the wider public. Built from 1726 by the architect Nicolas Antoine Perrard for the Marquis de Crécy, at the heart of an extensive hunting estate, the château featured an Italianate roof and several salons, including one richly decorated with stuccowork across two levels.
On 21 May 1746, Louis XV purchased Crécy and offered it to his newly established mistress. The Marquise regarded it as a welcome refuge from the constraints of life at Versailles, where she could enjoy a more private existence. The King visited frequently and stayed there for extended periods, while intellectuals, writers and artists were welcomed as part of her patronage of the arts.
A first campaign of works took place between 1752 and 1753, during which the present pair of corner cupboards was delivered. The project was directed by the architect Jean Cailleteau, assisted by the sculptors Jules-Antoine Rousseau and Jacques Verbeckt, both attached to the Bâtiments du Roi. A second campaign followed between 1755 and 1756, principally affecting the Grand Salon and dining room, which were enriched with stucco decoration executed by Louis Mensiaux. In 1755 she commissioned an important fauteuil à la reine by Nicolas-Quinibert Foliot for the Grand salon d’assemblée, sold at Sotheby’s Paris, 16 April 2013, lot 129. The following year she is thought to have transferred from Versailles four pairs of wall-lights attributed to Jacques Caffieri, sold at Sotheby’s London, 4 December 2024, lot 8.
In 1757 she sold Crécy to the Duc de Penthièvre, the grandson of Louis XIV, for one million livres and an annual income of one hundred thousand livres. The Duke, the largest landowner in France, retained the estate until 1775, when it passed to the Princesse de Montmorency, before ultimately being confiscated, sold and dismantled during the Revolution.
The present pair of corner cupboards likely left the Château de Crécy when Madame de Pompadour sold the estate to the Duc de Penthièvre in 1757. More than a century later, they were acquired by Paul Dutasta (1873-1925), a major figure in French diplomacy. French ambassador to the Holy See and later to Madrid, Dutasta assembled an outstanding collection of works of art and furniture reflecting a deep appreciation for seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French decorative arts.
The present pair was ultimately sold following his death during the celebrated dispersal of his collection at Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 3-4 June 1926, lot 145.
On 20 September 1753, this pair of encoignures (corner cupboards) stamped by Bernard II Van Risenburgh crossed the threshold of the Château de Crécy (fig. 1) to take their place in the apartments of Madame de Pompadour. Some time earlier, the Marquise had turned to the eminent Parisian marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux (1703-1758) to commission these precious pieces of furniture. On the day of delivery, the corner cupboards were precisely described in the dealer’s daybook as follows:
20 September 1753:
“1520. – Mme la Marq. de POMPADOUR: Sent to Crécy (...) ‘Two open encoignures on deer-foot legs, japanned, mounted with gilt bronze, the interiors veneered with satinwood decorated with flowers, topped with Brocatelle marble, 400 livres.’”
The high level of detail contained in this description allows the present pair to be identified with certainty; it is also what elevates them above the other corner cupboards listed in the daybook, placing them among the true masterpieces of their kind. The terms “open” and “on deer-foot legs” draw attention to their highly unusual form: they are open corner cupboards, whereas contemporary examples generally feature one or more doors. As such, they reveal the refinement of their marquetry-decorated rear uprights and the remarkable serpentine-shaped lower shelf rails. They also appear to rest upon a single elegant and subtly curved front leg, while the uprights discreetly support the structure at the rear. Behind this bold composition stands the leading tastemaker of her age, the woman who gave her name to a colour and a style, and who would only a few years later usher in the neo-classical movement: Madame de Pompadour.
Lazare Duvaux and Madame de Pompadour
The livre-journal (daybook) maintained by Duvaux between 1748 and 1758 reveals the exceptional extent of their relationship: the Marquise was among his most important and loyal clients. He served as her trusted supplier and remained in constant communication with her. Duvaux furnished a substantial portion of the furniture for her residences at the Hôtel d’Évreux, Bellevue, Crécy and Versailles; his records include more than a dozen purchases for Crécy in October 1752 alone and nearly twenty for her residence at Champs in October 1758. Among the most celebrated commissions are a night table attributed to BVRB now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1985.313.1), and a pair of Sèvres vases “à têtes d’éléphant” preserved in the Walters Art Museum (VO.34, 48.1796–48.1797). Holding a key political role at the heart of government, akin to that of a minister, the Marquise also commissioned numerous diplomatic gifts destined for foreign sovereigns and ambassadors from him, including presents for the Duke of Zweibrücken in 1754, the Duchess Strozzi in 1755 and Empress Maria Theresa of Austria in 1758.
Before becoming the essential intermediary between the Court and the most accomplished craftsmen of his day, Duvaux supplied workshops with exotic imported materials and products from European manufactories, including porcelain, crystal, lacquer and ivory. In the very year our pair of corner cupboards was delivered, Duvaux supplied Madame de Pompadour with the complete ‘Monkey Orchestra’ composed of numerous porcelain musician monkeys modelled by Johann Joachim Kändler and Peter Reinicke at Meissen, today preserved in the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, Toronto. When the French Court granted the Vincennes manufactory a twenty-year monopoly on the production of porcelain “in the Saxon manner”, the marchand-mercier visited the factory weekly to advise craftsmen and inspect production.
Duvaux’s daybook almost reads as a biography of the Marquise: month by month, her commissions reflect the evolution of her taste and ambitions. Her well-known love of luxury prompted orders ranging from jewels and magnificent diamond parures worth nearly two million livres to collars bearing her arms for her dogs. From 1756 onward, as she sought to improve her relationship with the Church in order to strengthen her position with the Queen, commissions for crucifixes adorned with precious stones and other devotional objects multiplied in the records. These efforts ultimately proved successful, and in February she was appointed Dame du Palais to the Queen, a distinction she appears to celebrate in her magnificent portrait by François Boucher painted the same year. To her left in that painting stands a small writing table by BVRB, probably supplied by Lazare Duvaux, whose curves and rosewood marquetry framed by kingwood closely echo the present pair of corner cupboards.
Far more than a mere supplier, Duvaux selected works, put together ensembles, coordinated craftsmen and orchestrated the decorative schemes of the Marquise’s interiors. Like other marchands-merciers, he sought to maintain exclusive relationships with his clients and therefore rarely recorded the names of the ébénistes involved. In Duvaux’s daybook, BVRB’s works appear simply as “furniture of the highest quality”, produced by a “skilled artist” named “Bernard”.
‘Bernard’ in the Service of Madame de Pompadour
The son of a German cabinet-maker specialising in clock cases, Bernard Van Risenburgh adapted his family name from Vleeschouwer and established his own workshop in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine in 1733. He stamped his furniture with the enigmatic mark “BVRB”, and by the late 1720s his work had already acquired a reputation for exceptional quality.
The oak carcass of the present corner cupboards, rigorously constructed, differs from the more commonplace softwood structures generally employed during the period. Above all, this pair perfectly embodies the highly personal and distinctive style developed by the ébéniste at the height of his career. Its marquetry is executed in end-grain wood, cut perpendicular to the grain, creating powerful contrasts of colour enhanced by ormolu mounts found on no other maker’s furniture. Although BVRB is especially renowned for incorporating innovative materials such as lacquer and porcelain into his furniture, he is also credited with reintroducing floral marquetry inspired by the legacy of André-Charles Boulle. Here, highly characteristic bouquets and flowering branches of dark end-grain kingwood stand out against a luminous ground of rosewood laid in opposing grain patterns. Duvaux’s daybook records the cabinet-maker’s first rosewood furniture in 1749 and his most important floral marquetry commissions between September 1748 and March 1762; the delivery of the present pair in September 1753 therefore fits perfectly within this period.
These marquetry panels are framed by a japanned and black-painted façade, almost certainly designed to harmonise with a larger decorative ensemble. Indeed, Duvaux’s daybook frequently records suites of matching furniture delivered together. The present black-japanned corner cupboards were therefore almost certainly intended to accompany other lacquer-style furnishings, such as the fall-front desk (fig. 2) and secrétaire (fig. 3) in Japanese lacquer by BVRB supplied to the Marquise three years later in 1756, formerly in the collection of Mr and Mrs Riahi and sold at Christie’s, London, 6 December 2012, lots 20 and 25.
Beyond their similarly curved outlines, which embody the rocaille style in its most accomplished and most restrained form, these furnishings share several closely related ormolu mounts with the present pair. Designed by BVRB himself, some of these mounts function almost as a signature motif, appearing in various forms, notably a cartouche composed of a scrolling shell flanked by acanthus leaves and surmounted by an asymmetrical flourish. It appears at the centre of the tri-lobed aprons of these pieces, as well as on a corner cupboard sold at Christie’s Paris, 19 June 1999, lot 81, on a Coromandel lacquer corner cupboard in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1983.185.2a, b), and on the front of a night table also preserved in the Metropolitan Museum (1985.313.1), which displays comparable marquetry and serpentine shelf rails.
Across all these pieces, BVRB protected the edges of legs and aprons with slender gilt-bronze mouldings, more restrained and elongated, representing an almost tempered form of rocaille ornament. The works of the ébéniste remained an integral part of Madame de Pompadour’s surroundings until the end of her life. Only months before her death in 1764, she posed for François-Hubert Drouais before a bookcase almost certainly made by Bernard II Van Risenburgh (fig. 4). Open and japanned black in imitation of lacquer, this bookcase, together with the work table shown beside her, appears almost designed to complement the present pair of corner cupboards.
The Château de Crécy
Among her eight residences, Madame de Pompadour held particular affection for the Château de Crécy, presented to her by Louis XV in 1746. Located near Dreux, it was her most important residence and remains one of the least familiar to the wider public. Built from 1726 by the architect Nicolas Antoine Perrard for the Marquis de Crécy, at the heart of an extensive hunting estate, the château featured an Italianate roof and several salons, including one richly decorated with stuccowork across two levels.
On 21 May 1746, Louis XV purchased Crécy and offered it to his newly established mistress. The Marquise regarded it as a welcome refuge from the constraints of life at Versailles, where she could enjoy a more private existence. The King visited frequently and stayed there for extended periods, while intellectuals, writers and artists were welcomed as part of her patronage of the arts.
A first campaign of works took place between 1752 and 1753, during which the present pair of corner cupboards was delivered. The project was directed by the architect Jean Cailleteau, assisted by the sculptors Jules-Antoine Rousseau and Jacques Verbeckt, both attached to the Bâtiments du Roi. A second campaign followed between 1755 and 1756, principally affecting the Grand Salon and dining room, which were enriched with stucco decoration executed by Louis Mensiaux. In 1755 she commissioned an important fauteuil à la reine by Nicolas-Quinibert Foliot for the Grand salon d’assemblée, sold at Sotheby’s Paris, 16 April 2013, lot 129. The following year she is thought to have transferred from Versailles four pairs of wall-lights attributed to Jacques Caffieri, sold at Sotheby’s London, 4 December 2024, lot 8.
In 1757 she sold Crécy to the Duc de Penthièvre, the grandson of Louis XIV, for one million livres and an annual income of one hundred thousand livres. The Duke, the largest landowner in France, retained the estate until 1775, when it passed to the Princesse de Montmorency, before ultimately being confiscated, sold and dismantled during the Revolution.
The present pair of corner cupboards likely left the Château de Crécy when Madame de Pompadour sold the estate to the Duc de Penthièvre in 1757. More than a century later, they were acquired by Paul Dutasta (1873-1925), a major figure in French diplomacy. French ambassador to the Holy See and later to Madrid, Dutasta assembled an outstanding collection of works of art and furniture reflecting a deep appreciation for seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French decorative arts.
The present pair was ultimately sold following his death during the celebrated dispersal of his collection at Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 3-4 June 1926, lot 145.
荣誉呈献
Paul Gallois
Head of European Furniture, EMEA