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After François-Honoré-Georges Jacob-Desmalter
A Fine Empire Style Gilt-Bronze and Mahogany Gueridon
£35,000
A Fine Empire Style Gilt-Bronze and Mahogany Gueridon, With A Verde Antico Marble Top, In the Manner of Jacob-Desmalter. The circular verde antico marble...
Dimensions
Height: 85 cm (34 in)Diameter: 91 cm (36 in)
PrintDescription
A Fine Empire Style Gilt-Bronze and Mahogany Gueridon, With A Verde Antico Marble Top, In the Manner of Jacob-Desmalter.
The circular verde antico marble top above a mahogany frieze with rosettes and palmette mounts supported by three finely cast and gilded gilt-bronze female caryatid figures. The stretcher centred by an urn flanked by winged sphinx and raised on ball feet.
The design for this important table is derived from the ‘console double face’ supplied in 1808 by by François-Honoré-Georges Jacob dit Jacob-Desmalter (d. 1841), for the bedroom of Caroline Murat, Napoléon’s youngest sister, at the Palais de l’Elysée, Paris. The original design relies heavily on the work of the important architects and designers Percier et Fontaine. Jacobs table is now displayed in the Grand Trianon, Versailles (see D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Grand Trianon, Meubles et objets d’art, (Paris), 1975; vol. I, p. 25).
French, Circa 1880.
Date
Circa 1880
Origin
France
Medium
Gilt-Bronze and Marble
François-Honoré-Georges Jacob-Desmalter (1770-1841) was Napoléon’s pre-eminent court cabinetmaker. He built up the business of his father, the well-known chairmaker Georges Jacob, into one of the most important and successful furniture workshops in Paris which by 1808 employed 332 workmen producing annually furniture valued at 700,000 francs.
Jacob-Desmalter et Cie produced neoclassical Empire style furniture often working to Percier and Fontaine’s designs, such as for Napoléon’s throne for the Château de Saint Cloud made in 1804. Cessation of the Parisian guild restrictions of the Ancien Régime meant that Jacob-Desmalter was free to produce both seat furniture and case furniture, the latter usually being made of mahogany and to neoclassical designs.
Heavily dependent on the patronage of the imperial household with cliental including Pauline Borghese, Napoleon sister, and the Empress Josephine, when the Emperor fell from power in 1813 the business went bankrupt. Jacob-Desmalter, however, managed to resurrect the company and continued to run it until his son, Alphonse-George, succeeded him in 1825.
