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Artist or Maker: AFTER MODELS BY ANDRÉ-CHARLES BOULLE, THIRD QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

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Provenance: Anonymous sale, Christie's, New York, 17 February 1995, lot 316 ($90,500).

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Notes: PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTI0N

André-Charles Boulle (d.1732), appointed Ebéniste, Ciseleur, Doreur et Sculpteur du Roi in 1672, is among the greatest ébénistes of all time. His fame was such that his name has become synonymous with a whole generic furniture type. In the first decades of the 18th century, while still exploiting the common practice of contrasting black ebony against the gold of gilded bronze and brass, silver-toned pewter and often red-coloured tortoiseshell in marquetry, Boulle introduced light, playful designs enlivened with small-scale, lacy designs of playful singeries, garlands of flowers and airy architectural fantasies. First popularised as a technique in his work for the French Court during the reign of Louis XIV, the style has since been associated with the most opulent and expensive designs.

Boulle-style furniture held its popularity and prestige throughout the 18th Century and into the 19th Century. Important makers, such as Sormani, Zwiener, Beurdeley and Blake, commonly copied or adapted great pieces of the past, often speculatively but frequently directly when commissioned by the likes of the Rothschilds, the Marquess of Hertford or Henry Clay Frick. Many of these 19th century pieces took their places comfortably side by side with their predecessors from the 17th and 18th centuries in great houses such as Mentmore. Examples of 19th Century Boulle armoires by Linke and Winckelsen were produced with the same lofty standards as the present pair (for a single armoire by Winckelsen, see Christie's new York, 24 April 2003, lot 285).

The present cabinets are directly inspired by several 18th Century models, including a virtually identical pair of armoires attributed to Boulle that now resides in the Louvre, Paris (inv. OA5516). The major difference between the two pairs being the unusual variation of painted panels on the offered lot rather than the marquetry panels of the original (D. Alcouffe et al, Furniture Collections in the Louvre, V.1, Dijon, 1993, pp.70-71). A pair of similar 19th Century example armoires with marquetry doors, was sold Christie's, London, 31 October 1996, lot 263. Another armoire, loosely based on this model, and also mounted with a painted panel, copying Rigaud's celebrated painting of Louis XIV in coronation robes, was sold Christie's, London 29 October 1998, lot 19. Interestingly, that example had locks bearing the same stamped ST as the present lot.

The finely-cast door locks on the present lot bears the stamp ST. Similar initials were employed in the late 19th/early 20th Century, as can be seen on groups of Régence style ormolu window fittings and French ormolu door fittings sold Christie's New York, 24 May 2000, lots 301-11. Door furniture in Waddesdon Manor is similarly stamped with ST, though the identity of the maker remains unknown. In the 18th century, the mark ST was used by the lock manufacturer Bricard who had acquired the stock of the lock retailer Sterlin in the 1760s. Louis XV and two Louis XVI ormolu locks stamped ST formerly in the Frederick P. Victoria and Alexander Collections were sold at Christie's New York, 27 May, 1999, lot 9 and 30 April, 1999, lots 66-67.