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A LATE LOUIS XVI ORMOLU-MOUNTED AMARANTH, BOIS CITRONNIER AND SATINWOOD FALL-FRONT SECRETAIRE (SECRETAIRE A ABATTANT)
- BY ADAM WEISWEILER, CIRCA 1785

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A LATE LOUIS XVI ORMOLU-MOUNTED AMARANTH, BOIS CITRONNIER AND SATINWOOD FALL-FRONT SECRETAIRE (SECRETAIRE A ABATTANT)
BY ADAM WEISWEILER, CIRCA 1785
Estimate
(Set Currency)
    $20,000 - $30,000

Sale Information

Sale 2350
500 Years: Decorative Arts Europe, Including Oriental Carpets
21 - 22 October 2010
New York, Rockefeller Plaza Buy Catalog





Lot Description

A LATE LOUIS XVI ORMOLU-MOUNTED AMARANTH, BOIS CITRONNIER AND SATINWOOD FALL-FRONT SECRETAIRE (SECRETAIRE A ABATTANT)
BY ADAM WEISWEILER, CIRCA 1785
The rectangular pierced three-quarter galleried yellow Jura Brocatelle marble top above a frieze-drawer and a fall-front enclosing a green leather-lined writing-surface and ten drawers and a concealed well, above three long drawers and on toupie feet, the top drawer with circular sticker numbered 29, stamped A.WEISWEILER to the right reverse
50 in. (127 cm.) high, 24½ in. (62.5 cm.) wide, 12½ in. (32 cm.) deep

Lot Condition Report
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Provenance

Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, New York, 18 October 2002, lot 540.

Lot Notes

Adam Weisweiler, maître in 1778.

The fine and simple design of this secretaire concieved in the goút Anglais draws inspiration from Thomas Sheraton's Drawing Book of 1784. The Louis XVI taste, so favored by the Prince of Wales, later George IV, became particularly fashionable following the opening of a shop by the marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre on Sloane Street in the 1780s. Through Daguerre, Weisweiler, ébéniste to Louis XVI, was employed by many of England's aristocrats including not only the future king but also George, 2nd Earl Spencer to whom he supplied a celebrated group of furniture in the same rest rained, elegant style for Althorp, Northamptonshire.

A secretaire of very similar form and simplicity was supplied to the Tuileries during the very end of the Louis XVI period or during the Revolutionary years and is now at the château de Pau (L. de Groër, Les arts décoratifs de 1790 à 1850, Paris, 1985, p. 101, fig. 166).

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