A Fine Pair Of Louis XIV Style ‘Boulle’ Marquetry Side Cabinets

Description

A Fine Pair Of Louis XIV Style Gilt-Bronze Mounted And ‘Boulle’ Marquetry Side Cabinets, In the Manner Of Andre-Charles Boulle, Attributed to Befort Jeune, Paris.

Each with polished slate top above an entablature of alternating pierced leaf and acanthus frond. The doors of arabesque brass-inlay marquetry, one in premier-partie and the other in contre-partie. Each door with sculptural gilt-bronze mountings of Aspasia and Socrates beneath a curtained baldaquin. The angles with geometric brass marquetry and gilt-bronze crowned bust clasps. The sides with masks of Hercules. The interior with an adjustable shelve.

French, Circa 1860.

From its inception in the 17th century, ‘Boulle’ furniture remained throughout the 18th and 19th centuries the ultimate expression of craftsmanship and prestige in the art of French ébénisterie. These side cabinets or meubles à hauteur d’appui are magnificent examples of boullework dating to the French Second Empire period, circa 1850-70.

Their design is derived from cabinets made for Louis XIV at the Château de Versailles which are called armoires à médailles (medal cabinets) but were likely used simply as cabinets for books or other articles. The present cabinets are intentionally narrower than the Versailles cabinets, as they are designed for less palatial 19th century interiors.

One of a pair of les armoires à médailles by Boulle in the Salon de L’Abondance at Versailles (Wikipedia / Public Domain).

The figures of the Greek philosopher Socrates and the courtesan Aspasia representing ‘Wisdom and Religion’, derive directly from Boulle who possessed a drawing of the subject after Michel Corneille’s painting of 1673 on the ceiling of the Salon des Nobles at Versailles.

Aspasia surrounded by the Greek philosophers. Study for a painting by Michel Corneille II on the ceiling of the Salon des Nobles at the Château de Versailles (© The Trustees of the British Museum / Public Domain)

Arguably the greatest cabinetmaker of all time, and certainly the most influential, André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732) is credited with inventing the technique of veneering furniture with marquetry of brass and pewter inlaid into turtle shell, which has become synonymous with his name. Boulle was already a master cabinetmaker by 1666, and was appointed ‘Ebéniste, Ciseleur, Doreur et Sculpteur’ to Louis XIV in 1672. Amongst those employed in Boulle’s atelier was Jean Mariette, whose ‘Nouveaux Deisseins de Meubles et Ouvrages de Bronze et de Marqueterie Inventés et gravés par André-Charles Boulle’, published in 1707, depicts various prime examples of Boulle’s work at that time and helped assure his legacy as a reference work which informed later cabinetmakers. Boulle furniture was made by his sons A-C. Boulle the younger (1685-1745) and Charles-Joseph Boulle (d. 1754) and their pupil Etienne Levasseur (1721-1798) who specialized in copying and repairing Boulle furniture and his stamp appears on many Louis XIV pieces. In the nineteenth century the Boulle technique was employed by English makers such as Robert Blake, ‘cabinet inlayer and buhl manufacturer’, and in France by many celebrated ébénistes, notably Mathieu Befort (1813-1880) and Henry Dasson (1825-1896).