A Fine Pair Of Louis XIV Style Boulle Marquetry Inlaid Corner Cabinets

Description

A Fine Pair Of Louis XIV Style Gilt-Bronze Mounted And Boulle Marquetry Inlaid Corner Cabinets Depicting the Four Seasons, in the Manner Of Andre-Charles Boulle, by Mathieu Befort (known as Befort Jeune).

Stamped on the veneers to the sides (beneath mounts) ‘BEFORT JEUNE’.
The gilt-bronze stamped ‘BEFORT JEUNE’ to the reverse.
Stamped to the reverse of the bronze mounts ‘BJ’ and ‘SS’.

The cabinets are of bow-front shape with a pair of doors enclosing a single shelf. Each has a Belgian black marble top above a frieze ornamented with gilt-bronze stiff-leaf. The doors are framed in gilt-bronze with corner brackets and sculpted standing figures representing the Seasons against a cut-brass première partie marquetry ground with arabesque scroll work. The corners are mounted with gilt-bronze bearded term figures and acanthus leaf volutes. The base apron centred by a bacchic mask.

French, Circa 1870.

Mathieu Befort, (known as Befort Jeune), working at Neuve-Saint-Gilles 1844-1866 specialised in making ‘meubles Boulle et de bois de rose avec mosaique et bronzes’. This pair of cabinets are superb examples of his art. Conceived in the celebrated Louis XIV style referencing the artistic glories of the Sun King, Befort designed these cabinet in homage to André-Charles Boulle, the most famous cabinetmaker of all time. Self-evident of this is the eponymous marquetry, but other details also reference Boulle, especially the use of mounts depicting the Four Seasons, which are a well-known Boulle model and appear on numerous pieces from the Boulle workshop. These figures, cast in relief in gilt-bronze and mounted appliqué are another ornamental innovation of Boulle. One cabinet partners Ceres holding sheaves of wheat, the goddess of fertility representing summer, with the robbed figure of Boreas, warmed by a flaming urn, representing winter. The other cabinet has Persephone, the goddess of Spring, holding flowers, and Dionysus, wrapped in vine and holding a cup, representing autumn. They remained popular with the following generations of Boulle imitators and were a particular favourite of Mathieu Befort who, having gone to the cost of modelling and castings figures of the Seasons, used them to princely effect on cabinets such as these.

Boulle, André-Charles, Musée du Louvre, OA 5455 – https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010107452 – https://collections.louvre.fr/CGU

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.

Boulle furniture designs as published in ‘Nouveaux Dessins de Meubles et Ouvrages de Bronze et de Marqueterie inventés et gravés par André-Charles Boulle’ (1707).

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).