Paul Somani Case Pieces and Storage Cabinets

Beautiful 19th century French rosewood cabinet with gilt bronze mounts. Beautiful red chinoiserie design cabinet doors and a breche Violette ma...

A fine quality late 19th century French Louis XVI style marble topped side cabinet. Having wonderful quality gilded ormolu mounts depicting swags, drapes and buffalo heads. Parquetry...

A very good quality pair of late 19th century French mahogany bow fronted display cabinets, each with a gallery to the top, gilded ormolu foliate and molded mounts, central doors with a glass shelf within, a frieze drawer above a shelf beneath with a paneled back and raised on elegant cabriole legs. Signed; Paul Sormani (1817-1877), one the most important cabinetmakers of the 19th century, was born in Venice. Having trained as a cabinetmaker, he moved to Paris where he opened his first shop in 1847 specializing in furniture made in the Louis XV and Louis XVI style. When she decorated her palace, Empress Eugenie, the wife of Emperor Napoleon III, who was particularly fond of furniture in the 18th century styles, engaged Sormani to create spectacular pieces to compliment her period examples. Sormani was able to meet the Empress’s high standards with the excellent quality of the cabinet work, bronze mounts, use of lacquer and unusual marbles. Sormani’s firm was a maker of fine “meubles de luxe”, (deluxe furniture) whose work was described in the 1867 Exposition Universelle catalogue as “toute sa production revele une qualite d’execution de tout premier ordre”. He received a medal of premiere classe at the Exposition Universelle of 1855, followed by another medal at the 1862 exposition in London The workshop also made eclectic furniture...