An oak, rosewood, brass table mirror inlaid with tortoiseshell
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An oak, rosewood, brass table mirror inlaid with tortoiseshell
About the Item
Exhibited: Royal Pavilion, Brighton, "The Regency Exhibition," 1951.
Literature: The Regency Exhibition, Royal Pavilion, Brighton, 1951, cat. no. 215.
Provenance: by repute, George, the Prince Regent, Carlton House, London
Ruth, Countess Costantino, New York
Count A.G. Costantino, Washington
With a shaped, rounded top which is crowned by a fan-form plume chased with husks and acanthus foliage, the mirror is supported on the front on two in-turned foliated scrolls of gilt bronze and at the back on a hinged, wooden leg. The carcass is of oak veneered on the front with contre-partie Boulle marquetry of tortoise-shell and pewter on brass, and on the back with rosewood. The mounts are of bronze chased and gilt. The mirror frame is veneered with floral trails and flower heads of pewter and tortoise-shell backed with green and red foil. The frame is mounted with two moldings, the one on its inner edge chased with a repeating geometric pattern enclosing flower-heads, and the other on its outer edge with strapwork and alternate flower-heads and pearls. Pierced clasps are fitted to its upper corners and foliated cartouches to its lower ones, all of gilt bronze. The mirror is backed with a panel of rosewood, and its hinged leg is veneered with rosewood.
The arched cartouche-shaped form of this mirror appears in a drawing for a mirror executed by the goldsmith Thomas Germain for Queen Marie Leczynska (now in the Bibliothèque National, Paris). A toilet mirror of the same form was probably acquired by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild for Waddesdon (G. de Bellaigue, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, Fribourg, 1974, no. 74, pp.370-1). A further example of this form was in the collection of the Duke of Hamilton at Hamilton Palace, Lanarkshire, and was sold at Christie’s house sale, 17-20 July, 1882, lot 998, while another closely related model is in the Wallace Collection (F.J.B. Watson, Wallace Collection Catalogues: Furniture, 1956, F 50, pl.81).
Andre Charles Boulle, (1642–1732), a French cabinetmaker, and the master of a distinctive style of furniture, for which he was much imitated, and for which his name has become a synonym. In 1672 he was admitted to a group of skilled artists maintained by Louis XIV in the Louvre palace, and thereafter he devoted himself to creating costly furniture and objects of art for the king and court. Boulle's pieces, having in general the character of Louis XIV and regency design, were built for the immense formal rooms of the period. Although not quite the inventor of the peculiar type of inlay, which is chiefly associated with his name, there has been no artist, before or since, who has used these motives with such astonishing skill, courage and surety. He produced pieces of monumental solidity blazing with harmonious color, or gleaming with the sober and dignified reticence of ebony, ivory and white metal. The Renaissance artists chiefly employed wood in making furniture, ornamenting it with gilding and painting, and inlaying it with agate, cornelian, lapis-lazuli, marble of various tints, ivory, tortoise-shell, mother-of-pearl and various woods. Boulle improved upon this by inlaying brass devices into wood or tortoise-shell, which last he greatly used according to the design he had immediately in view, whether flowers, scenes, scrolls, etc.; to these he sometimes added enameled metal. Boulle had a passion for collecting pictures, engravings and other objects of art. In 1720 a fire in his atelier lists the inventory of his losses exceeding 40,000 in amount, enumerated by many old masters, including forty-eight drawings by Raphael and the manuscript journal kept by Rubens in Italy. The title cabinetmaker to the king passed to his four sons, Jean Philippe, Pierre Benoit, Andre Charles, and Charles Joseph.
- Dimensions:Height: 29.325 in (74.49 cm)Width: 21.75 in (55.25 cm)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:Paris, France, circa 1710-1720
- Condition:Excellent Antique.
- Seller Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:Seller: MI 18-201stDibs: U1110038543260
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