‘Boulle’ marquetry of loggerhead (Caouane) tortoiseshell, copper and pewter and blackened oak, ornamentation of chiselled and gilded bronze.
Total H.: 129 cm. ( 50 ¾ in.); W. 27 cm. ( 10 ½ in.); D. 17 cm. ( 7 in.).
PROVENANCE: Auction of Augustin Bondel de Gagny, 10th December 1776, n° 967; auction of the Count du Luc, 22nd December 1777, n° 43; acquired for 1301 livres by painter, expert, and art dealer, Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Lebrun (1748-1813); LeBœuf auction, 8th April 1783, n° 211; acquired for 1322 livres by the famous collector and art dealer Vincent Donjeux († 1793); probably Lamure auction, 19thApril 1791, n° 209; probably Duclos-Dufresnoy auction, 18th August 1795, n° 179; Charles Stein auction, Paris, 10th May 1886, n° 362 (height 121 cm.); collection of Boniface de Castellane (bought circa 1895-1898); Louis Guiraud auction, Paris, Me Ader, 10th December 1971, n° 117; Juan de Beistegui Collection, auction on 10th September 2018, n° 60.
EXHIBITION: Louis XIV, Fastes et Décors, Musée des Arts décoratifs, Paris, May-October 1960, n° 151-152 (then property of Mme Louis Guiraud); André Charles Boulle, Catalog of the exhibition presented at the Château de Chantilly, from June 8 to October 6, 2024, Saint-Rémy-en-l’Eau, pp. 256-265, cat. no. 35.
LITERATURE: Emile Molinier, Histoire Générale des Arts Appliqués à l’Industrie du Ve à la fin du XVIIIe siècle, Paris, undated (1898), 6 vol.; vol. III: Le Mobilier au XVIIe et au XVIIIe siècle, p. 73 (illustrated in engraved form; then collection of Count Boniface de Castellane).
Between 1740 and 1770, Augustin Blondel de Gagny assembled one of the most important collections of paintings and objects of art in Paris in his mansion on Place Vendôme (now the Ritz Hotel). Its auction in the winter of 1777 was undoubtedly one of the most famous in the 18th century. Most of the furniture had been commissioned from great contemporary cabinetmakers, such as Cressent, Bernard II Van Risamburgh and Joseph Baumhauer, but Blondel de Gagny had a predilection for furniture by Boulle, of which he owned about twenty pieces—notably a medal cabinet with Aspasia and Socrates; a pair of arched commodes modelled on the one in the Louvre; a pair of three-legged consoles with rams’ heads and another console with four doe’s feet; three large low bookcases with glazed sides; a commode; a barometer-thermometer modelled on the one in the Jones Collection and the small two-body cupboard also in the Jones Collection; and everywhere could be seen gaines and pedestals in Boulle marquetry.
