A LOUIS XVI ORMOLU MOUNTED AND SEVRES PORCELAIN-INSET AMARANTH AND BOIS CITRONNIER BONHEUR-DU-JOUR
- BY ADAM WEISWEILER, CIRCA 1787

BY ADAM WEISWEILER, CIRCA 1787

(Set Currency)

£150,000 - £250,000
• ($230,000 - $380,000)

• Place Bid

Sale 7745
important european furniture, sculpture & clocks
9 July 2009
London, King Street

A LOUIS XVI ORMOLU MOUNTED AND SEVRES PORCELAIN-INSET AMARANTH AND BOIS CITRONNIER BONHEUR-DU-JOUR
BY ADAM WEISWEILER, CIRCA 1787
The D-shaped inverted breakfront grey-veined white marble top with balustraded gallery, above a panelled drawer mounted with confronting griffins and a cupboard door set with a parcel-gilt and polychrome-decorated panel painted with a ribbon-tied floral basket within a fond Taillandier, enclosing an amaranth-lined interior with a shelf and three drawers, above a further drawer, flanked by fluted uprights with foliate capitals and mirrored sides, each with three galleried shelves, the lower section fitted with a long frieze drawer simulating three and enclosing a gilt-tooled green leather-lined writing slide and two short drawers, on removable turned tapering and fluted legs terminating in toupie feet, stamped twice 'A. WEISWEILER' and 'JME', with a paper label inscribed ...FRANçAISES SERVICE DES EXPOSITIONS Paris/...', and with an inventory label inscribed 'G/03/012', and remains of two old paper labels to the back, the Sèvres porcelain plaque marked with interlaced Ls and incised 'BP' to reverse, three short drawers currently locked
59½ in. (151 cm.) high; 44¾ in. (113.5 cm.) wide; 22 in. (56 cm.) deep

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

The Sèvres porcelain plaque dates from circa 1760-70; however, it appears to be associated and the painted decoration dates from circa 1830-40.

THE PROPERTY OF A LADY

This superb secrétaire by Adam Weisweiler decorated with jewel-like ormolu mounts set against lustrous satinwood veneers, epitomises the unrelenting goût for exquisite Sèvres porcelain-mounted furniture invented by the leading marchands-merciers of late 18th century Paris.

Adam Weisweiler (maître in 1778) was one of the most celebrated ébénistes of the Louis XVI period. He received numerous commissions from the Couronne, most often through the marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre who specialised in supplying objets de luxe to the French, Neapolitan and Russian court, as well as to the Prince of Wales, future King George IV.

PORCELAIN-MOUNTED FURNITURE: LE DOMAINE DES MARCHANDS-MERCIERS
Introduced as early as c. 1760 by marchand-merciers such as Simon-Philippe Poirier and Daguerre, porcelain-mounted furniture became the passion of the most avant-garde Parisian connoisseurs. Although Poirier pioneered the use of porcelain in furniture, it was undoubtedly Daguerre who became the largest purchaser of Sèvres plaques after 1770 and well into the 1790s, thereby enjoying a quasi monopoly on plaques from the Manufacture de Sèvres.

Sèvres porcelain plaques such as that adorning the present lot which features a lilac ribbon-tied floral basket, were described as 'plaque quaré, (...) Corbeilles et fleurs attachees avec un Ruban'; while the blue-dotted bordered ground is often referred to as fond Taillandier, a term coined after the Manufacture's celebrated porcelain painter Vincent Taillandier. Closely related floral bouquets or baskets on a blue fond Taillandier also feature on a secrétaire by Martin Carlin (maître in 1766) at Waddesdon Manor (G. de Bellaigue, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor: Furniture, Clocks and Gilt Bronzes, vol. I, London, 1974, pp.342-7), and on a further example attributed to Weisweiler in the Wallace Collection (ill. in P. Hughes, The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Furniture, vol. II, London, 1996, pp.1020-24), while a third example by the ébéniste is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Decorative Art from the Samuel H. Kress Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Aylesbury, 1964, p.154-61), no. 28). The same incised 'B P' initials are found on the plaque of a porcelain-mounted table in the Wallace Collection (P. Hugues, op.cit, p.1149-52), and on that of a Sèvres porcelain-mounted secrétaire with the date-letter for 1758-9, stamped by Charles Louis Coste (maître in 1784) and offered at Christie's, New York, 22 October 2003, lot 770.

CELEBRATED PORCELAIN-MOUNTED FURNITURE BY WEISWEILER

One of the most closely related and unquestionably the most illustrious Sèvres porcelain-mounted bonheur-du-jour by Weisweiler is the 'Pavlovsk Weisweiler secrétaire', which originally stood in the boudoir of Empress Maria Feodorovna (1759-1828) at Pavlovsk Palace, St. Petersburg, until sold by the Soviet government in 1932, and subsequently offered at Christie's, New York, 21 October 1997, lot 256 (ill. P. Lemonnier, Weisweiler, Paris, 1983, p. 137), while another related example by Weisweiler was sold at Ader Picard Tajan, Paris, 8 June 1990, lot 131 (FF2,000,000) (ill. in P. Kjellberg, op.cit, p.910).

Interestingly, a secrétaire en cabinet of comparable form and design was executed by Weisweiler jointly with fellow ébéniste Jean-Henri Riesener (maître in 1768). Probably recorded first in 1791 in the Palais du Luxembourg, the Parisian residence of the comte de Provence, and then in the collection of Charles de Pauw, it was sold at Christie's, New York, 26 October 2001, lot 260, and is illustrated Ibid, p. 913.

A further related Sèvres-porcelain mounted secrétaire-à-abattant of comparable form and arrangement, almost certainly executed by Carlin and featuring a closely-related swagged drapery frieze is in the Wallace Collection (ill. in P. Hughes, op.cit, pp.948-54). The strong similarities between the latter secrétaire and the present lot are all the more fascinating that they are representative of the correlation between the oeuvre of the two ébénistes who worked so extensively with Daguerre.

European Furniture, Decorative Objects & Early Sculpture

• late 18th Century
• bonheur du jour
• Furniture & Lighting
• table
• bronze
• porcelain
• satinwood
• France
• Louis XVI