إيمانويل زوينر
‘The Four Seasons Cabinet’ – A Large and Important Parquetry Side Cabinet
£110,000
'The Four Seasons Cabinet' - A Large and Important Gilt-Bronze Mounted Parquetry Side Cabinet by Emmanuel Zwiener, Paris. This magnificent cabinet is...
ابعاد
Height: 118 cm (47 in)Width: 193 cm (76 in)
Depth: 66 cm (26 in)
Weight: 215 kg
وصف
‘The Four Seasons Cabinet’ – A Large and Important Gilt-Bronze Mounted Parquetry Side Cabinet by Emmanuel Zwiener, Paris.
This magnificent cabinet is titled ‘The Four Seasons Cabinet’ with reference to the four gilt-bronze sculptural terms which each represent a different season. Palatial in scale this imposing side-cabinet is surmounted by its original white-marble top. The gilt-bronze frieze moulding is cast in a guilloche pattern and finished in burnished gilding. The pair of cupboard doors of bois satiné veneer have trellis parquetry with gilt-bronze studs. The interior fiteed with an adjustable shelf. The sides have open shelves and back panels with trellis parquetry. Raised on lion paw and ball feet.
The reverse of the the gilt-bronze mountings variously stamped ‘ZJ’ for Zwiener.
تاريخ
حوالي عام 1900
أصل
فرنسا
متوسط
Parquetry and Gilt-Bronze
توقيع
The reverse of the the gilt-bronze mounts variously stamped 'ZJ' for Zwiener Jansen Successeur.
ZWIENER
Emmanuel Zwiener (1849-after 1907)
Julius Zwiener (1867-1922)
The most recent research indicates that there were three Zwiener brothers from Herdon, Germany. The eldest brother Joseph had by the 1880s established a substantial workshop in the city of Breslau in Silesia, now in Western Poland. His younger brothers Emmanuel and Julius were, by the same time, working in Paris. Recorded from 1880 with workshops at 12, rue de la Roquette they established themselves as premier haut luxe cabinet makers of the period, producing elegant pieces of furniture replicating royal models from the Garde-Meuble National of France, most notably a replica of the celebrated Bureau de Roi by Jean-Henri Riesener and Jean-François Oeben which Zwiener supplied to Ludwig II at Herrenchiemsee, and was placed in the King’s study in 1884. Their own creations were a dynamic interpretation of the French Rococo style. Zwiener’s furniture is often inlaid with the finest marquetry and set with ambitiously modelled ormolu figural mounts.
Zwiener’s production culminated in being awarded the coveted medaille d’or for a rococo style vernis Martin-decorated serre-bijoux cabinet at the Paris 1889 Exposition universelle. It subsequently entered the collection at Gatchina of Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia and was most recently sold in London in 2011.
The jury at the 1889 exhibition noted:
“dès ses débuts d’une Exposition universelle, [il] s’est mis au premier rang par la richesse, la hardiesse et le fini de ses meubles incrustis de bronzes et fort habilement marquetis” (“from his debut at the exhibition, [Zwiener] has been in the top tier for his furniture of great richness, boldness and finished with bronzes and skilful marquetry”).
At the 1889 Paris Exhibition it is thought that Tsar Alexander III also bought from Zwiener a replica of the Bureau de Roi. It is recorded in the Russian Imperial collection in a portrait of Nicholas II painted in 1914 by Baron Ernst Friedrich von Liphart (1847–1932).
Zwiener supplied furniture to an elite international cliental including some of his most famous pieces for the New York mansion of the financier and art collector Charles Tyson Yerkes (1837–1905). Zwiener furniture is also recorded at De Haar Castle, the Netherlands, probably originally supplied to Etienne and Hélène de Zuylen, née de Rothschild for their Paris home.
Kaiser Wilhelm II observed Zwiener’s success at the 1889 Paris Exhibition and with Royal patronage requested that Zwiener work in Germany. Subsequently, Zwiener made a suite of exceptional bedroom furniture for the Kaiser which was exhibited to Germany’s credit at the 1900 Paris Exhibition. The suite was further exhibited in Berlin and then installed at the Berlin Palace but was lost after World War II, only resurfacing at Sotheby’s New York in 1989. Many other pieces executed by Zwiener for the Prussian royal palaces were brought to Huis Doorn in Utrecht in 1918, where the Kaiser lived in exile until his death in 1941, and remain there.
The gilt-bronze mounts to furniture by Zwiener were often marked to the reverse with the maker’s initials. Several of Zwiener’s mounts have been found to have a ‘Z’, ‘ Zw’, a ‘IZ’, ‘NZ’, ‘ZN’ or ‘ZJ’ on the reverse. These marks exist on the master models from which the bronzes are cast and appear on furniture identified as being made in Paris or Berlin. The stamps ‘E. ZWIENER’ and ‘J. ZWIENER’ to the wood are also known.
It is thought that when Julius moved to Berlin, Emmanuel retired selling the 12, rue de la Roquette workshops for 10,000 francs to Jean-Henri Jansen (1854-1929), founder of the decorating firm Maison Jansen. The Parisian business was renamed ‘Zwiener Jansen Successeur’, and Jansen continued to faithfully produce Zwiener’s creations, using the original models. Pieces from this time are sometimes stamped ‘MON ZWIENER / JANSEN SUCR’ to the carcass.
ببليوغرافيا:
Ledoux-Lebard, Les Ébénistes du XIXe Siècle, (Paris), 1984, pp. 645-648.
Mestdagh, Camille & Lécoules, Pierre. L’Ameublement d’art français : 1850-1900, Les Editions de l’Amateur, (Paris), 2010; pp. 301-305.
Meyer, Jonathan. Great Exhibitions – London, New York, Paris, Philadelphia, 1851-1900, Antique Collectors’ Club, (Woodbridge, UK), 2006; p. 270, pls. H14; p. 299, p.302.
Payne, Christopher. Paris Furniture – the luxury market of the 19th century, Éditions Monelle Hayot (Paris), 2018; pp. 555-569.