Oak frame; ebony veneer; “première partie” copper and tortoiseshell marquetry; brass fillets; metal; Portor marble.
Pietra dura panel adorned with parrot perched on a shrub: Florence, late 17th century.
H. 101.5 cm. (40 in.); W. 144.5 cm. (57 in.); D. 48 cm. (19 in.).
STAMPED: E. LEVASSEUR twice visible on the carcass under the marble top.
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS : Morant & sons/91, New Bond Street [London], inscription printed in black and capital letters on a rectangular beige label stuck under the central panel in pietra dura and its bronze framework.
PROVENANCE: private collection.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: Alexandre Pradère, “Boulle, du Louis XIV sous Louis XVI”, L’Objet d’art, n° 0, June 1987, p. 56-67; M. Aldrich, “A Setting for Boulle Furniture: The Duke of Wellington’s Gallery at Stratfield Saye”, Apollo, June 1998, p. 20-22.
“Boulle” marquetry furniture was emblematic of the reign of Louis XIV and continued to fascinate great aristocrats, ministers and most of all great financiers well into the 18th and 19th centuries, prompting renowned cabinetmakers—the most important and inventive of whom were indisputably the Levasseur – to specialize not only in the restoration of authentic pieces of furniture by André-Charles Boulle but also in their reproduction, which often went beyond mere pastiche and gave rise to full-fledged creations, to which the quite architectural waist-high piece presented here indisputably belongs.
Stamped twice E. LEVASSEUR on the top of a carcass of oak compartments, under a Portor marble top, this piece is remarkable in front for the presence in the middle of its large, slightly protruding central door of a rectangular panel of polychrome hard stone marquetry displaying a parrot oriented rightward and perched on one of the branches of a shrub rising from a ground in Ruin Marble, the whole contrasting against a background of Paragone del Belgio, a panel that was executed in Florence within the Opificio delle Pietre Dure of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany and dated from the late 17th century.
This panel is set into the door and enhanced by a lavish gilt-bronze framework chiselled with motifs of acanthus fleurons and surrounded by a band of “première partie” marquetry in copper and tortoiseshell displaying luxuriant rinceaux adorned with acanthus leaves.
An identical, but slightly thinner bronze framework lines the outer contour of the central door as well as three of the sides of the two narrower lateral door leaves, and the contour of the two compartments forming the small sides of the piece of furniture. A lavish decor veneered in “première partie” of copper and tortoiseshell, with motifs of rosettes, flowered scrolls and acanthus, occupies the front of the two lateral door leaves. Ebony veneered frames enhanced with brass fillets structure the whole piece, enriched at the angles with gilt-bronze braces chiselled with rosaces, acanthus scrolls and grain buds. The three doors are closed with a lock and enclose adjustable rack shelves. The piece is crowned by a luxuriant rail adorned with a bronze frieze alternating stylized palmettes, fleurons and acanthus leaves, the whole enhanced with an ove frieze adorned with a heart-and-dart frieze. Two powerful gilt-bronze Hercules’ heads, covered by the hide of the Nemean lion, flank the centre of the small sides. The whole rests on an even ebony-veneered plinth, whose projection is enhanced by an ove frieze identical to the one adorning the Portor marble top crowning the piece, a very rare marble that was used by Levasseur for his most beautiful creations and which has been exploited in Italy and Corsica since Antiquity, and remarkable for its black colour criss-crossed by yellow furrows, which was described in laudatory terms by Jérôme Adolphe Blanqui in his Dictionnaire du commerce et des marchandises […], published in Paris in 1855: “The background on this marble is black and its veins are a golden yellow, which earned it its name of Portor (porte or) [i.e. “gold bearing”]. It must be listed among the richest marbles, and yet it is only valued and much sought-after when its quality is beyond reproach […] Portor marble comes for the Gulf of Spezia (Duchy of Genoa)”.
The pendant of our cabinet, with a decor rigorously identical to ours, adorned with a copper and tortoiseshell “contre-partie” marquetry coming probably from the same cut-out piece, and a central pietra dura panel adorned with a parrot symmetrically oriented leftward, was part of the Ian Askew collection, London, in 1952.
The Levasseur dynasty, by Alexandre Pradère
The dynasty of the Levasseur, which was active in Paris between 1750 and 1840 over three generations, is well known for its role in the production and restoration of pieces of Boulle furniture, but the biographies of the three main protagonists have only been superficially dealt with so far and their in-depth study remains to be done.
The best known of them is the grandfather, Etienne Levasseur (1721-1798), who, according to a legend forged by his grandson, was supposed to have been trained by Boulle; instead, it was more likely to have been one of Boulle’s sons in the 1740s. The first mention of him we have is that of his marriage in 1748 to Marie-Louise, the daughter of the cabinetmaker Nicolas-Jean Marchand. He was at the time listed as a free worker active on rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine. In 1765, he was still established in the same street at the sign of the Cadran Bleu, at the corner with the rue Traversière and he stayed in the same house until his death in 1798. He received his mastership only in 1767. Although his stamp can be found on a number of furniture pieces in marquetry or mahogany, he mainly produced luxury pieces (particularly lacquered ones) that were destined to Parisian marchands merciers, such as Darnault and Julliot.
It was for Julliot that he specialized in the restoration of old furniture by André-Charles Boulle and the production of neo-classical furniture executed with the same technique. Even if these pieces displayed the same marquetry of tortoiseshell, brass and ebony—sometimes by reusing old panels—and reproduced successful models by Boulle – bas d’armoires, low bookcases and cabinets—they were not exactly pastiches. Their inspiration was clearly neo-classical, with architectural forms, structured by pilasters and gilt-bronze ornaments characteristic of the 1770s.
The Julliots, father and son, were, among the Paris marchands-merciers, the great promoters of the vogue for neo-Boulle furniture between 1760 and 1800. Claude François Julliot (1727-1794) was established on rue St Honoré, at the sign Au Curieux des Indes. The colonel de Saint Paul, an English diplomat posted in Paris circa 1770, wrote the following in his notebook of the best addresses of Parisian dealers: “Juliot, at the corner of the rue d’Orléans opposite the rue de l’Arbre Sec, rue St Honoré, has a large shop of furniture and most of all pieces by Boulle”.
From the years 1782-1787 his son Philippe-François had taken over his business first at Au Curieux des Indes and later moved to rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau where he is listed between 1794 and 1802. He was Levasseur’s main buyer of Boulle’s furniture, yet, as all Parisian luxury workshops, he suffered from the revolution and had to file for bankruptcy in 1799. In the ensuing auction in 1802 the mention of pieces of furniture still in the process of being finished (plinths, cabinets, bas d’armoires) shows that Levasseur’s workshop was still working for Julliot. Meanwhile, Etienne Levasseur had died in 1798 aged 77. It is therefore likely that his workshop had been taken over for some time already by his son, Pierre-Etienne (after 1749-after 1823).
The latter, who was born of Etienne’s second marriage to Marie-Louise Montrand, had married on 20th November 1785 Sophie Vandercruse, the daughter of cabinetmaker Roger Vandercruse-Lacroix. In 1785 he delivered walnut furniture for the Garde-meuble royal and was listed until 1789 among Hauré’s suppliers as well as Lacroix, his brother-in-law. In 1798, when his father died, he is listed as being established on rue Martel, then rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin in 1807 and lastly, 114 rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine where he worked with his son (or nephew?), known as Levasseur jeune. The latter is the only one listed as from 1823.
Levasseur jeune worked in the family workshop before taking it over in 1823 and transferring it between 1833 and 1837 in the cour de l’Arsenal. In 1823, he proposed to the Garde-meuble royal two pieces that had been executed fifteen years before for Godoy, the prince of the Peace. In his letter of 19th May 1826, he wrote: “These two pieces of furniture, unique of their kind, could [only have been executed] by MM Levasseur, artists who are as unassuming as they are distinguished and who have earned great fame for themselves in Paris. In these gentlemen’s workshops can also be found a magnificent assortment of furniture pieces in ebony and marquetry after the manner of BOULLE, which attracts there a great many foreigners, since they are the only ones in the capital to execute that kind of pieces or to be able to repair the old furniture by Boulle”.
It is likely that the production of Boulle’s furniture, which had remained in the doldrums during the Empire for lack of interested buyers – except for foreign collectors like Van Hoorn and Crauford – picked up with a vengeance when the third generation was at the helm with Levasseur Jeune. The fall of the Empire and the return of the English to Paris was tantamount to renewing the vogue for Boulle furniture, with the massive purchases by the Duke of Wellington and George IV.
The sales of the merchant Nicolas Lerouge in 1818 and Bonnemaison in 1827 had made available for the market a series of Boulle furniture pieces by Levasseur, most of which were bought in England, thus spreading the taste for that kind of furniture. Levasseur’s workshop closed down in 1841 at the same time as a sale of his business was underway.
Morant & Son, a prosperous dynasty of great English merchants established in New Bond Street in London since the late 18th century.
Our piece was sold by another great English dealer, whose label it bears—George Morant (1770-1846), official supplier to the British Crown, who founded his firm in 1790 at 88 New Bond Street in London, delivering pieces in particular to George IV and a little later to Queen Victoria, on the recommendation of the Duchess of Gloucester.
In Suffolk, he was the accredited supplier to Sir William Parker, at Melford Hall, and he also delivered furniture for Sir William Middleton. Among the other great clients of the Morant firm were the Marquess of Londonderry at Wynyard Park, in Durham county, and the Duke of Sutherland at Stafford House, now famous under the name of Lancaster House, in London. Morant & Son delivered “Boulle” furniture in particular to Mamhead Park in Devon.
The firm changed several times its corporate name, successively called “G. Morant, Carver, Gilder & Picture Frame Maker, To His Majesty” in 1814, “George Morant, house decorator, carver, gilder & picture-frame-maker to His Majesty” in 1832 and then “G. Morant & Son, carvers, gilders & upholsterers to the Queen” in 1839. It remained on New Bond Street, established first at n° 88, then at n° 91, before moving a few years later to n° 81. After George’s death in 1846, its name became “Morant, Boyd and Morant” and took part to the Great Exhibition of 1851, where it exhibited a famous table executed for the Duchess of Sutherland. The famous firm took part in the New York exhibition in 1853.
