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Lot Essay
Adam Weisweiler, maître in 1778.
The elegant bronze table, serving as a table en gueridon or table en cabaret is conceived as a Roman or Pompeian tripod altar-table with paired pillars, while its top, with richly figured and marble-like veneer, displays Jupiter and Juno in a jasper cameo that evoked the banquet of the gods. It relates to a design by the celebrated Parisian marchand-ébéniste Dominique Daguerre (d.1792), and to the manufactures of the ébéniste Adam Weisweiler, who was elected maître in 1778.
It is probable that Daguerre was responsible for the design and marketing of this model of table, which continued the tradition of furniture mounted with Sèvres porcelain plaques as pioneered by Simon-Philippe Poirier in the 1760's. The dealer Granchez of 'Au Petit Dunkerque' introduced Wedgwood and Bentley's cameo tablets to France, and from 1787 Daguerre was Wedgwood's representative in Paris. It was in the same year that Sir William Eden, the British minister plenipotentiary in Paris, was to inform Wedgwood that his 'Figures En Relief are far beyond anything that has been attempted anywhere'.
This gueridon exemplifies the fashionable Louis XVI-style led by arbiters of taste such as Madame du Barry, who gave the duc de Brissac a table of very close description, delivered by Lignereux and Daguerre in 1791. In the inventory following the death of Daguerre there is listed:
V Item une petite table ronde forme de guéridon en racine de bois d'acajou poli sur trois pieds doubles en bronze doré façon de bambous avec entrejambe à tablettes et camé de porcelaine ornant la tablette supérieur prisée trois cent francs, cy....300
(reprinted in P. Lemonnier, Weisweiler, Paris, 1983, p. 162).
The elegant bronze table, serving as a table en gueridon or table en cabaret is conceived as a Roman or Pompeian tripod altar-table with paired pillars, while its top, with richly figured and marble-like veneer, displays Jupiter and Juno in a jasper cameo that evoked the banquet of the gods. It relates to a design by the celebrated Parisian marchand-ébéniste Dominique Daguerre (d.1792), and to the manufactures of the ébéniste Adam Weisweiler, who was elected maître in 1778.
It is probable that Daguerre was responsible for the design and marketing of this model of table, which continued the tradition of furniture mounted with Sèvres porcelain plaques as pioneered by Simon-Philippe Poirier in the 1760's. The dealer Granchez of 'Au Petit Dunkerque' introduced Wedgwood and Bentley's cameo tablets to France, and from 1787 Daguerre was Wedgwood's representative in Paris. It was in the same year that Sir William Eden, the British minister plenipotentiary in Paris, was to inform Wedgwood that his 'Figures En Relief are far beyond anything that has been attempted anywhere'.
This gueridon exemplifies the fashionable Louis XVI-style led by arbiters of taste such as Madame du Barry, who gave the duc de Brissac a table of very close description, delivered by Lignereux and Daguerre in 1791. In the inventory following the death of Daguerre there is listed:
V Item une petite table ronde forme de guéridon en racine de bois d'acajou poli sur trois pieds doubles en bronze doré façon de bambous avec entrejambe à tablettes et camé de porcelaine ornant la tablette supérieur prisée trois cent francs, cy....300
(reprinted in P. Lemonnier, Weisweiler, Paris, 1983, p. 162).