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A LOUIS XVI TULIPWOOD, FRUITWOOD AND MARQUETRY BONHEUR DU JOUR
- BY ANDRE LOUIS GILBERT, CIRCA 1775

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A LOUIS XVI TULIPWOOD, FRUITWOOD AND MARQUETRY BONHEUR DU JOUR
BY ANDRE LOUIS GILBERT, CIRCA 1775
Estimate
(Set Currency)
    £25,000 - £40,000
  • ($37,900 - $60,640)

Sale Information

Sale 7900
A View from the Spanish Steps - The Collection of Maria Angiolillo
15 July 2010
London, King Street

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Lot Description

A LOUIS XVI TULIPWOOD, FRUITWOOD AND MARQUETRY BONHEUR DU JOUR
BY ANDRE LOUIS GILBERT, CIRCA 1775
Inlaid overall with marquetry vistas, the semi-circular superstructure with brèche d'Alèp marble top with pierced gallery, above three central sprung drawers flanked by cupboard doors, the base also with an inset marble, above a frieze drawer fitted with an inkwell, on square tapering legs, indistinctly stamped 'A. L. GILBERT' and 'JME'
37½ in. (95 cm.) high; 21 in. (53 cm.) wide; 15½ in. (37 cm.) deep

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Lot Notes

André Louis Gilbert, maître in 1774.

The charming marquetry pastorale scenes which decorate this bonheur du jour combine classical ruins with 18th century figures engaged in leisurely pursuits. Gilbert's production included numerous examples decorated with detailed marquetry, with a recurrence of particular themes: vases of flowers, urns, draperies, ribbons, trophies, landscapes and scenes 'à l'antique such as those on this piece.

Gilbert's pictorial marquetry panels were often based on engraved sources, and Geoffrey de Bellaigue discussed the possibility that a group of specialist marqueteurs such as Christophe Wolff (maître in 1755), André-Louis Gilbert (maître in 1774), and Jacques Dautriche (maître in 1765) would have supplied marquetry panels to marchand-merciers as well as other ébénistes. It is also likely that large workshops employed their own marqueteurs (G. de Bellaigue, 'Ruins in Marquetry', Apollo, January, 1968, pp.12-16 and G. de Bellaigue, 'Engravings and the French Eighteenth-Century Marqueteur', Burlington Magazine, May 1965, pp. 240-250 and July 1965, pp. 356-363). Comparable, but not identical, panels of marquetry with ruins and pastoral scenes are found on several examples stamped by other ébénistes, including several commodes by André-Louis Gilbert, illustrated in P. Kjellberg, Le Mobilier Français du XVIIIe Siècle, Paris, 1989, pp. 358-359.

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