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Lot Essay
Jean-Georges Schlichtig, maître in 1765.
This impressive secrétaire à abattant, decorated with striking marquetry panels, is a superb example of the ‘pictoral’ furniture produced from the 1770s until the end of the Ancien Régime. As discussed by scholar Geoffrey de Bellaigue, furniture with these remarkable ‘paintings in wood’ represented a coordinated coming together of a range of artists and craftsmen. Typically, the panels themselves would be based on engraved sources by celebrated artists, which specialist marqueteurs such as Wolff and Gilbert would then transfer onto wood for the marchand-merciers and ébénistes. Larger ateliers, however, are known to have employed their own marqueteurs, and so would have carried out the process entirely in-house (G. de Bellaigue, 'Ruins in Marquetry', Apollo, January, 1968, pp.12-16 and G. de Bellaigue, 'Engravings and the French Eighteenth-Century Marqueteur', Burlington Magazine, May 1965, pp. 240-250 and July 1965, pp. 356-363).
The intricate marquetry panel to the fall-front of this secrétaire, which depicts a classical château view from a jardin à la française, most probably depicts the country residence of its original owner. The Italianate classical ruins, and harbour scenes with figured which adorn the lower panels and sides, are based on a series of ‘capricci’ engravings by P.-F. Basan, which in turn were derived from a painting by P.-A. de Machy (1723-1807), who was acknowledged as an expert painter – ‘l’unique en ce genre’ – of architecture and ruins by the journal L’Avant-Coureur, 23 January 1764 (G. de Bellaigue, 'Ruins in Marquetry', Apollo, January 1968, p. 20).
An almost identical secrétaire, also stamped by Jean-Georges Schlichtig was formerly in the collection of Roberto Polo. Its panels depict theatrical scenes inspired by the Galerie des Modes series of engravings by Voysard, after designs by P. J. Leclerc, sold at Artcurial, Paris, 18 June 2013, lot 183. The latest secrétaire closely relates to a commode by Schlichtig depicting similar scenes which was delivered to the Garde-Meuble of Queen Marie-Antoinette, now in the Louvre (inv. OA6509). Other secretaires with similar marquetrie panels, although by other ébénistes, are recorded such as a secrétaire à abattant stamped by Pierre Roussel from the collection of the late R.N.S. Clarke, Esq. sold Christie's, London, 10 December 1992, lot 211, or the example stamped by Pierre Macret, formerly in the collection of Sir Michael Sobell, sold Christie's, London, 23 June 1994, lot 148.
This impressive secrétaire à abattant, decorated with striking marquetry panels, is a superb example of the ‘pictoral’ furniture produced from the 1770s until the end of the Ancien Régime. As discussed by scholar Geoffrey de Bellaigue, furniture with these remarkable ‘paintings in wood’ represented a coordinated coming together of a range of artists and craftsmen. Typically, the panels themselves would be based on engraved sources by celebrated artists, which specialist marqueteurs such as Wolff and Gilbert would then transfer onto wood for the marchand-merciers and ébénistes. Larger ateliers, however, are known to have employed their own marqueteurs, and so would have carried out the process entirely in-house (G. de Bellaigue, 'Ruins in Marquetry', Apollo, January, 1968, pp.12-16 and G. de Bellaigue, 'Engravings and the French Eighteenth-Century Marqueteur', Burlington Magazine, May 1965, pp. 240-250 and July 1965, pp. 356-363).
The intricate marquetry panel to the fall-front of this secrétaire, which depicts a classical château view from a jardin à la française, most probably depicts the country residence of its original owner. The Italianate classical ruins, and harbour scenes with figured which adorn the lower panels and sides, are based on a series of ‘capricci’ engravings by P.-F. Basan, which in turn were derived from a painting by P.-A. de Machy (1723-1807), who was acknowledged as an expert painter – ‘l’unique en ce genre’ – of architecture and ruins by the journal L’Avant-Coureur, 23 January 1764 (G. de Bellaigue, 'Ruins in Marquetry', Apollo, January 1968, p. 20).
An almost identical secrétaire, also stamped by Jean-Georges Schlichtig was formerly in the collection of Roberto Polo. Its panels depict theatrical scenes inspired by the Galerie des Modes series of engravings by Voysard, after designs by P. J. Leclerc, sold at Artcurial, Paris, 18 June 2013, lot 183. The latest secrétaire closely relates to a commode by Schlichtig depicting similar scenes which was delivered to the Garde-Meuble of Queen Marie-Antoinette, now in the Louvre (inv. OA6509). Other secretaires with similar marquetrie panels, although by other ébénistes, are recorded such as a secrétaire à abattant stamped by Pierre Roussel from the collection of the late R.N.S. Clarke, Esq. sold Christie's, London, 10 December 1992, lot 211, or the example stamped by Pierre Macret, formerly in the collection of Sir Michael Sobell, sold Christie's, London, 23 June 1994, lot 148.