Hungarian oak carcass; rosewood, amaranth and burr maple veneer; polychrome wood marquetry on a green-stained sycamore ground; light wood fillets; gilded bronze; leather; glass.
H. 77.5 cm. (30 ½ in.) ; W. 51 cm. (20 in.); D. 40 cm. (15 ¾ in.).
Stamped three times: J.H. RIESENER.
PROVENANCE: collection of Count Patrice de Vogüé (1928-2020) at the Château of Vaux-le-Vicomte, à proximité de Maincy (Seine-et-Marne) ; Christie’s auction at Monaco, 17th June 2000, lot n°. 363 (sold 4,877,500 Francs).
LITERATURE: David Linley, Charles Cator, and Helen Chislett, Meubles d’exception, Paris, 2010, p. 152, repr.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: 18e aux sources du design, catalogue of the exhibition held at the Palace of Versailles from 28th October 2014 to 22nd February 2015, Dijon, 2014, p. 242–243, cat. n°. 75 (entry by Marc-André Paulin).
Dating circa 1775, this chiffonnière or à ouvrage table from the collection of the Count Patrice de Vogüé (1928-2020) at the Château of Vaux-le-Vicomte in Seine-et-Marne is the only recorded example of this model bearing the stamp of Jean-Henri Riesener (1734-1806) three times. Another table of this model is known to exist, but unstamped, having belonged in succession to the collections of Bernard Steinitz and then Nicolas Cattelain, which was displayed at the Palace of Versailles in 2014-2015, forming lot n°. 75 of the exhibition 18e aux sources du design. To these two tables, one should also add a later one—dated circa 1780-1784—entirely veneered in mahogany, from the collection of Richard Seymour-Conway (1800-1870), 4th Marquess of Hertford, now kept in the Wallace Collection, London.
A table possibly corresponding to our model appeared in the 1790 inventory of the Hôtel du Garde-Meuble de la Couronne, Paris, described in the boudoir of Monsieur de Villeneuve, inspector of the Garde-Meuble since 1784: “-110. A square-shaped chiffonnière serving as a writing table in marquetry wood, its top inlaid with musical attributes, with copper edges, sabots and castors.” However, lacking dimensions and more precise indications, it is unfortunately impossible to confirm this as our model.
Of remarkable finesse in its execution, the table features a rectangular Hungarian oak carcass, each of whose four sides is punctuated by a large central projection forming a slight projection at the base, with the front enclosing two drawers without rails—lower and middle—the latter with a simple keyhole escutcheon, separated by a moulded gilt-bronze band with beaded fillet from a faux belt drawer. The latter is crowned by a sliding writing tablet, which is fitted with two small oblong gilt-bronze knobs and lined with brown leather with gold edging. The short sides of the table each display a belt drawer, which is highlighted by an identical bronze band, and adorned in centre by a moulded gilt-bronze disc encircled by a finely chased, movable ring in the shape of a seeded laurel torus. The same discs and rings, arranged in pairs on either side of the central projection, flank the “three” drawers on the façade.
The corners of the carcass, with their chamfered and protruding angles, each crowned by a gilt-bronze chute adorned with acanthus scrolls and whose front edges are enriched with bronze fillets, display a subtle recess enhanced by a bronze disc at the base of the four ’console’ legs, with a hexagonal cross-section and very slightly concave faces, supporting the table. A rectilinear contour echoing the projections on the four faces characterizes the base of these legs, each of which terminates in a very rich sabot with a large acanthus leaf scroll and central spike, resting on a chamfered quadrangular base mounted on castors. The panels outside the projections on the four sides of the table are veneered in rosewood set in amaranth frames, enhanced with light-wood fillets and fine moulded strips of solid rosewood; those on the projections are characterised by a restrained mosaic lozenge marquetry, also in rosewood, framed by moulded strips of the same wood bordered by amaranth frames without light-wood fillets.
As the height of refinement, the corner projections of the table, as well as its four legs, are veneered on the façade with burr maple, as are the lateral sides of the legs, the veneers of the latter inserted into compartments whose edges are highlighted by a fillet of light-coloured wood.
A double tray, forming a slight projection, crowns the table. The lower tray is fixed and features a slight recess entirely veneered in rosewood and enhanced by a frame in amaranth and light wood fillet forming quarter-rounds at the corners. The upper tray, embellished with a plain bronze lingotière, is hinged and, when opened, reveals a reverse side covered with a mirror surrounded by a moulded rosewood strip and amaranth border, turning the table into a toilette (dressing table). The top of this tray features a luxurious polychrome wooden trophy in a frame of amaranth and fillet of light wood, contrasting with a green-stained sycamore background, with intertwined motifs of musical scores, a recorder, a bow and a quiver, surrounded by a luxurious crown of rose foliage.
Riesener most certainly drew inspiration here from the trophy models devised by Pierre Ranson (1736–1786), painter of flowers and arabesques, who published several Cahiers (notebooks) of trophy models precisely during these years 1775–1780, among which we can find exactly these motifs of foliate crowns of roses and flowers encircling musical instruments adorned with musical scores, as well as bows and quivers, some of which display this precise quadrangular shape with an upper scroll flourish. During the same period, 1775-1780, Riesener adorned several important pieces of furniture with musical trophies or intertwined motifs of torches, quivers and cornucopias, several of which were commissioned by the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne. Of particular note is the commode he delivered on 6th August 1777, accompanied by a flat desk, a secretary and a writing table, “for the King’s service at the Château de Trianon”, registered as n°. 2906 in the Journal du Garde-Meuble de la Couronne, from the collection of Baron Édouard de Rothschild (1868–1949), and now kept at the Château de Versailles; or the one dated 1775-1780 from the collections of the Duke of Abercorn, now at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon.
Our table still bears clear traces of the influence of Jean-François Œben (1721-1763, Master in 1761), in whose workshop Riesener trained as an apprentice, then worked as a craftsman before taking over its direction upon his master’s death. belonging to Count Patrice de Vogüé at the Château of Vaux-le-Vicomte, it was sold anonymously by Christie’s in Monaco on 17th June 2000, lot n°. 363, for the very substantical sum of 4,877,500 Francs.
Count Patrice de Vogüé inherited the Château of Vaux-le-Vicomte from his father, Jean de Vogüé (1898–1972), who presented it to him on the occasion of his marriage in 1967, to Maria-Cristina Colonna di Paliano, daughter of Prince Guido Colonna di Paliano (1908-1982) and Tatiana Conus (1916-2009), herself the daughter of the famous Russian violinist, composer and music teacher Julius Eduardovich Conus (1869-1942). Jean de Vogüé was the nephew of Edme Sommier (1873-1945), son of Alfred Sommier (1835-1908), a fabulously wealthy industrialist who made his fortune in the family sugar refining company called “Sucres Pommier”, and who acquired, in June 1875, the Château of Vaux-le-Vicomte, sold by the Choiseul-Praslin family, which was at that time uninhabited, partly unfurnished, in a rather dilapidated state, and even at risk of demolition.
From 1875 to 1908, he and his wife, Jeanne Brugière de Barante (1853-1932), spent the huge sum of 5,558,000 Gold Francs on financing the colossal restoration work on the buildings, which they entrusted to the architect Hippolyte Destailleur (1822-1893), not to mention refurnishing the château and completely redesigning its gardens, which was entrusted to architect and landscape designer Élie Lainé (1829-1911). Edme Sommier took over the restoration of the château and its gardens upon the death of his father, becoming his sole heir in 1911. When he died without issue in 1945, it was his nephew, Jean de Voguë, who inherited the estate. His father, Robert de Vogüé (1870-1936), had married Edme’s sister, Lucie Sommier (1874-1946), on 8th March 1896. In 1910, the couple acquired the Château du Tremblay sur Mauldre in the Yvelines.
