CIRCA 1750

Gustave de Rothschild (1829-1911) married Cécile Anspach in 1859. She was a talented artist herself and together they established their family at 23 avenue de Marigny, constructed between 1873 and 1883 by Alfred-Philibert Aldrophe on a large site assembled from three hôtels particuliers between the avenue de Marigny and the rue du Cirque. Aldrophe also built for them the château de Laversine overlooking the river Oise near Chantilly, between 1882 and 1893.

Gustave inherited part of his father’s collection and collected Kunstkammer objects, as well as some of the greatest examples of Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI furniture. He was extremely conscious of the past history of the pieces in his collection. In acquiring works that had belonged to some of the most celebrated collectors of the past, many of them royal, such as Louis XV and Marie Antoinette, as well as the papal and princely Borghese family, William Beckford, Randon de Boisset and Prince Demidoff, the Rothschilds were aligning themselves to the fabled and romantic histories of those collectors and collections.

The hand-biting lobster on the figure of Touch recalls the engraving 'Tactus' by Gottfried Bernhard Goz (d. 1774), which portrays a pastoral scene with lovers watching as a crayfish bites Harlequin of the Italian Comedy, see Dr. P. Jessen, Rococo Engravings, London, 1922, fig. 116. A group of five Meissen porcelain figures emblematic of the senses was sold in these rooms on 19 July 2022, lot 173.