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Lot Essay
This golden table, beautifully embroidered in silver filigree to evoke the sun-and-poetry deity Apollo, was designed for the salle de reception dressing-room window-pier of a grand bedroom apartment decorated in the Louis XIV antique/Roman fashion.
Festive bacchic ribbons, enwreathed by Roman acanthus, fret the top's hollow-cornered tablet, which displays a floral mosaiced medallion, whose octafoiled sunflower recall's Ovid's History of Apollo's love Clytie recounted in his Metamorphoses or Loves of the Gods. The flower-petals, voluted in Grecian lyre form, are accompanied by laurels and Venus scallop-shells in celebration of lyric poetry's triumph. The ribboned tablet and medallion are likewise wave or lyre scrolled in Ionic volutes, whose crescent pelta form evokes arms laid aside and agriculture flourishing.
Louis XIV adopted Apollo to represent the Gloire of France as his court's presiding deity, and this inlaid 'toilette' tablet evolves from an engraving after a Jacques Androuet du Cerceau design entitled 'Dessins pour tables, bureaux et autres ouvrages de marquetrie' (illustrated here).
PIERRE GOLE
This 'bureau mazarin' closely relates to the oeuvre of Pierre Gole (circa 1620 - 1684), recently published by Th. H. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Pierre Gole, ébéniste de Louis XIV, Dijon, 2005. The term bureau mazarin was adapted for this form in the 19th century in the belief that Cardinal Mazarin was involved in the original commissions. However, the first record of a bureau mazarin is in 1671 when Gole supplied one to the Royal garde-meuble, long after Mazarin's death in 1661. In 1672 Gole supplied another bureau mazarin of engraved pewter inlaid in brass, but with carved giltwood supports and superstructure, to Louis XIV, which is believed to be the one today in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry at Boughton House (op. cit., p. 185). Of the many bureaux mazarins that Gole supplied to Louis XIV, the latter is the only one that can be identified with any certainty.
In 1677 Gole supplied 'deux petits bureaux de marqueterie et ornements d'étain,' which in the Inventaire général are described under numbers 318 and 319 as decorated with 'marqueterie de cuivre et d'étain à fleurs de bois de diverses couleurs.' They were delivered to the château de Fontainebleau.
Gole also supplied several bureaux mazarins to private clients, including one bearing the arms of the marquis de Mirabeau and Elisabeth de Rochemore, which is today at the musée des Beaux-Arts in Chartres (op. cit., p. 194). Gole is believed to have made between 60 and 70 such bureaux in his life, of which over 20 were for the Royal family.
Festive bacchic ribbons, enwreathed by Roman acanthus, fret the top's hollow-cornered tablet, which displays a floral mosaiced medallion, whose octafoiled sunflower recall's Ovid's History of Apollo's love Clytie recounted in his Metamorphoses or Loves of the Gods. The flower-petals, voluted in Grecian lyre form, are accompanied by laurels and Venus scallop-shells in celebration of lyric poetry's triumph. The ribboned tablet and medallion are likewise wave or lyre scrolled in Ionic volutes, whose crescent pelta form evokes arms laid aside and agriculture flourishing.
Louis XIV adopted Apollo to represent the Gloire of France as his court's presiding deity, and this inlaid 'toilette' tablet evolves from an engraving after a Jacques Androuet du Cerceau design entitled 'Dessins pour tables, bureaux et autres ouvrages de marquetrie' (illustrated here).
PIERRE GOLE
This 'bureau mazarin' closely relates to the oeuvre of Pierre Gole (circa 1620 - 1684), recently published by Th. H. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Pierre Gole, ébéniste de Louis XIV, Dijon, 2005. The term bureau mazarin was adapted for this form in the 19th century in the belief that Cardinal Mazarin was involved in the original commissions. However, the first record of a bureau mazarin is in 1671 when Gole supplied one to the Royal garde-meuble, long after Mazarin's death in 1661. In 1672 Gole supplied another bureau mazarin of engraved pewter inlaid in brass, but with carved giltwood supports and superstructure, to Louis XIV, which is believed to be the one today in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry at Boughton House (op. cit., p. 185). Of the many bureaux mazarins that Gole supplied to Louis XIV, the latter is the only one that can be identified with any certainty.
In 1677 Gole supplied 'deux petits bureaux de marqueterie et ornements d'étain,' which in the Inventaire général are described under numbers 318 and 319 as decorated with 'marqueterie de cuivre et d'étain à fleurs de bois de diverses couleurs.' They were delivered to the château de Fontainebleau.
Gole also supplied several bureaux mazarins to private clients, including one bearing the arms of the marquis de Mirabeau and Elisabeth de Rochemore, which is today at the musée des Beaux-Arts in Chartres (op. cit., p. 194). Gole is believed to have made between 60 and 70 such bureaux in his life, of which over 20 were for the Royal family.