An Important Louis XV Style Lacquer Commode

Description

An Important Louis XV Style Gilt-Bronze Mounted Lacquer Commode, by Maxime Secrétant, Paris.

Of bombé outshape with Portor marble top. The front with two deep drawers and applied with superb gilt-bronze foliate and rocaille mounts. The whole finished in exquisite black and gold Japanese lacquer depicting mountain landscapes and temples. Raised on cabriole legs.

Stamped with marque au fer ‘M. SECRETANT / 1918’ and with a fleur-de-lys within a shield. The mounts incised to the back ‘M.S.L.’ and numbered ‘2422, 2524, 2525, and 2528’.

France, Dated 1918.

This magnificent commode is a direct copy of a famous model in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Acquired by the museum in 1882, it forms part of the Jones Collection (inv. 1105-1882). Dated to 1760-1765, it is attributed to Bernard van Risenburgh II, who was active during the reign of Louis XV and stamped with his initials B.V.R.B.

The Jones Collection commode , circa 1760-65, by Bernard Vanrisamburgh © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

The curvaceous shape, asymmetrical foliate gilt-bronze mounts and use of Japanese lacquer are exemplary of the Rococo style. The Jones Collection commode is decorated with Japanese lacquer which is applied as thin sheets veneered onto the carcase. The bombé shape of the drawer fronts means great skill is required to glue the thin sheets of lacquer on to the curved oak construction beneath. The lacquer would have been reused from a Japanese screen or cabinet.

The present commode copies the Jones Collection example in phenomenal detail, down to the Portor marble top and lacquer-work detailed with mountains, temples and trees. Such accuracy is unusual in replicas of the period, which usually reinterpret period pieces with some artistic licence.

Christopher Payne notes that ‘Incredibly, in what must have been a deliberate and expensive copy, the Secrétant example of 1918 appears to have identical lacquer to the original in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the same black and “gold” Portoro Macchia Larga marble slab’ (C. Payne. Paris Furniture The Luxury Market of the 19th Century, Editions Monelle Hayot, Paris, 2018 p. 151).

The present commode illustrated in C. Payne, Paris Furniture The Luxury Market of the 19th Century, page 151.

Variations of the model are also recorded by Paul Sormani and François Linke. However, there are slight differences between such repetitions indicating that the makers were not working from a single definitive source but had each independently made interpretations of this famous model.

The reason the model was so popular stems from the obvious beauty of the design and excellent proportions which make it the definitive exemplar of a Louis XV style commode.

Famously, François Linke sent one carcase of his version to Tokyo for lacquering in 1909. Linke records that it was sent via Russia on the Trans-Siberian railway to Akatsuka Jitoku. That the lacquering to the present commode so exactly replicates the Jones Collection commode, indicates that the lacquer is not salvaged from a pre-existing Japanese screen or such, but is also a bespoke commission.

The version by François Linke which was sent to Tokyo for lacquering in 1909.

Although Linke is thought to have made only one example of this commode, which he sent to Japan for lacquering, it is plausible that the present commode was made for Secrétant by Linke and it made the same journey to Japan. Indeed, there is evidence of collaboration between Linke and Secrétant on other pieces.

Secrétant stamps furniture with the marque au fer ‘M. SECRETANT’. This piece is also stamped with a shield containing a fleur-de-lys which is likely a chateau mark denoting the piece as being made for a particular, as yet unknown, collection. The gilt-bronze mounts have incised marks to the reverse for ‘M.S.L’ which is thought to stand for Maxime Secrétant Leblanc indicating they were cast by Gustave Leblanc for the Leblanc-Barbedienne foundry.