Lot Essay
Comparables:
Paris, hôtel de Broglie, rue de Varenne, Paris VII, Gérard Mille and Hervé Mille, circa 1955
Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, inv. 72.DA.71
Aylesbury, Waddesdon Manor, Bequest of James de Rothschild, inv. 2350
London, Wallace Collection, inv. F 393.
From the collections of the famous decorator Gérard Mille (Fig. 1)[i] at the Hôtel de Broglie (Fig. 2), this sideboard in tortoiseshell marquetry, engraved brass and stained horn was made by Etienne Levasseur. The central panel features the figure of Bacchus, the model for which was created by the king's cabinetmaker and bronzier, André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732). The side panels incorporate marquetry panels from the Louis XIV period created by the famous cabinetmaker Nicolas Sageot. The ebony sides feature a chased and gilded bronze mask of Hercules. The top is in black marble.
[i] The brothers Gérard and Hervé Mille were among the leading figures of post-war Paris. Gérard Mille, a prominent decorator, had a predilection for the Louis XIV and Louis XVI periods. The neoclassical setting of the flat they shared in the Hôtel Granard (Hôtel de Broglie) on rue de Varenne (the flat that became Maurice Druon's) showcased important pieces of furniture and seating, as well as numerous objets d'art, in a warm and never staid atmosphere. Visitors could admire a pair of antique Greek vases on a Louis XVI mantelpiece... Gérard Mille's personal interiors were published throughout his career (‘Gérard Mille chez lui à Paris’, L'Oeil, n° 100, April 1963.
Eveline Schlumberger, ‘Troisième changement de décor chez Gérard Mille’, Connaissance des Arts, 15 December 1955, no. 46, pp. 104-109.Connaissance des Ars, n°101, July 1960 p. 18, ‘à Rome’, Connaissance des Ars, December 1962 p. 148.148, ‘En hommage à Gérard Mille: l'appartement qui illustre le mieux le style baroque qui couronna sa carriere de decorateur’, Connaissance des arts, no. 146, April 1964, pp. 66-71).His brother Hervé, a close associate of Jean Prouvost, helped create Paris-Match and became editorial director of Marie-Claire and Télé 7 jours. For half a century, whether on rue de Montpensier or rue de Varenne, the Mille brothers' salon was a meeting place for the Parisian intelligentsia, including Coco Chanel and Misia Sert, to whom they were close friends, Jean Cocteau and Bébé Bérard, Pierre and Hélène Lazareff, Colette, Arletty and many others.
A masterpiece by the great Nicolas Sageot, magnificently adapted by Étienne Levasseur, the most talented neoclassical cabinetmaker of the Boulle Revival, this piece of furniture illustrates the luxury Parisian market of the 18th century. While some cabinetmakers copied André-Charles Boulle's turn-of-the-century designs identically, Étienne Levasseur was certainly the most creative, whether or not reusing elements of marquetry or furniture made by Nicolas Sageot. This rare cabinet is a perfect illustration of the genius of the Levasseur-Julliot duo and the cabinetmaker's ability to reappropriate the works of his illustrious predecessor Nicolas Sageot.
A synthesis between the timeless taste of Boulle furniture and the evolution of furniture
The shape and structure of this cabinet are the result of an evolution in interior design. As Alexandre Pradère has pointed out, there was a move away from tall cupboards or large cabinets to furniture with a high base or lower cupboard. Under Louis XIV, cabinets and cupboards with legs were in vogue, and their richest and most elaborate panels were placed at eye level. In contrast, interior decoration in the second half of the 18th century emphasised picture rails, which were stretched with fabric and left free to allow paintings to be hung. Many Boulle cabinets, now too large, were redesigned. The bases were separated from the cabinet itself and often transformed into consoles. The cabinet part was more or less modified to form a piece of furniture at support height.
In short, as Alexandre Pradère has studied, these new forms reflect the vogue for the cabinet in Boulle's ‘antique’ taste, although it is a more modern interpretation adapted to the most fashionable Louis XVI interiors, which reached its apogee in the 1770s.Not a single major auction catalogue devoted a section to the ‘precious furniture of Boule le père’ or to that of the ‘Boule genre’. The prices achieved were particularly high. This success unequivocally illustrates the renewed attraction for Boulle furniture at the end of the Ancien Régime, particularly among financiers and other dignitaries, the traditional clientele of Louis-Quatorzian classicism, such as Blondel de Gagny, Radix de Sainte-Foix and Grimod de la Reynière.A passage from a letter from the Marquis de Marigny to his cabinetmaker Pierre Garnier concerning the choice of furniture for his library is highly revealing of his preference for ebony: ‘You will agree with me that ebony and bronze furniture is much more noble than mahogany furniture.
Étienne Levasseur (1721-1798), Master in 1767
Originally on a chest of drawers by Nicolas Sageot, the marquetry panels were included in a new piece of furniture made by Étienne Levasseur around 1780.
The upper frieze in chased and gilded bronze is characteristic of Levasseur's creations; it can be found on many pieces of furniture such as the pairs of cabinets made around 1770, exhibited at Buckingham Palace (Fig. 4)[i], at the Cincinnati Museum of Arts (Fig. 5)[1] or in a private collection (Fig. 6), while the mask of Hercules on the sides was used for many years by the Levasseur workshop (Fig. 7).Despite Levasseur's status as a household name, his early career remains unclear to this day.
From an advertisement in the Bazar Parisien (1822), his grandson tells us that Étienne Levasseur trained with one of André-Charles Boulle's sons in the 1740s, either André-Charles, better known as ‘Boulle de Sève’ (died 1745), or Charles-Joseph (died 1754). Awarded a master's degree in 1767, he set up business under the name Au Cadran Bleu as a privileged worker on rue du Faubourg-Saint-Antoine.
In 1789 he delivered for the Garde-Meuble royal.After his death in 1798, the workshop was taken over by his son and then his grandson.His work was divided between mahogany, Japanese lacquer and Boulle marquetry furniture.Like our cabinet, we should mention a pair of flap secretaries by Levasseur, each built from a Boulle commode, one of which belongs to the English royal collections and is kept at Windsor Castle (fig. 8) and the other sold in 2010 (fig. 9).Levasseur was one of the leading figures in the production of Boulle furniture in the 1770s and 1780s, alongside his eminent peers Adam Weisweiler, Philippe-Claude Montigny, Jean-Louis Faizelot Delorme and Joseph Baumhauer. They all worked with merchant-merchants, Julliot in particular.
Claude-François Julliot (1727-1794)
Merchants played a dominant role in the luxury goods market in the 18th century. They were merchants, importers and ‘great propagandists’ in the words of Pierre Verlet, who invented, transformed and adapted materials to ‘please their customers by presenting them in the French fashion and according to the taste of the day.Merchants specialised in lacquerware, ceramics, etc.; Boulle furniture was the speciality of Claude-François Julliot.Colonel Saint Paul described Julliot as follows in 1770 in his book Les bonnes adresses de Paris autour de 1770: ‘Julliot, at the corner of the rue d'Orléans opposite the rue de l'Arbre Sec, rue St Honoré, has a large furniture shop and especially works by Boule’. In the sales of the 1770s, he bought Boulle furniture both for himself and for his customers.
As a specialist in Boulle furniture, he carried out inventories for major collectors such as Gaillard de Gagny in 1759, Julienne and Beaujon in 1787 and his peers such as Lazare Duvaux.He was also an expert at the Randon de Boisset sale in 1776, which fetched the highest prices at the time for Boulle furniture from the Louis XIV period, but also revisited.A year later, he delivered a Boulle marquetry commode made by Levasseur to the Comte d'Artois for the Temple[i], now in the Musée du Louvre.
That same year, an inventory of his stock was drawn up following the death of his wife, prior to the sale on 20 November and 11 December. The sale revealed a whole repertoire of ‘Boulle revival’ furniture: old Boulle furniture, more recent pieces, transformed Boulle furniture, copies, overmouldings, etc. Julliot described all the pieces, but unfortunately did not give any real indication of their date or attribution.Claude-François Julliot retired from the market in 1780 and, as his father Claude-Antoine had done, gave way to his son Philippe-François Julliot, known as Julliot fils (1755-1835).
This piece of furniture, made at the end of the 18th century, probably around 1780-1790, by Étienne Levasseur like its ‘counterpart’, also from the Mille collection (fig. 10)[i], probably at the instigation of the merchant Claude-François Julliot, replaced highly original marquetry panels dating from the beginning of the 18th century.
Nicolas Sageothis type of panel can be found on a group of chests of drawers made by Nicolas Sageot. Several chests of drawers of this type with polychrome marquetry in the first or counterpart marquetry are known to exist, including one sold in 1997 (Fig. 11) and a second in 2017 (Fig. 12).
In a statement of Nicolas Sageot's goods, attached to the sale he concluded on 26 July 1720 in favour of Léonard Prieur, merchant jeweller following the court, apart from cupboards, bookcases and desks, ten four-foot [129.92 cm] chests of drawers are mentioned, four of which ‘without tops, also in copper and tortoiseshell marquetry and similarly trimmed with bronzes’, The latter were valued at 2,500 livres, as were ‘four commodes, three feet eight inches [119.10 cm] long, also in copper and tortoise shell marquetry and similarly trimmed with bronze’ and two other ‘commode bodies’ of the same size, and a final one, also inlaid, the dimensions of which are not specified, valued at 300 livres.
It therefore seems likely that commodes modelled on the panels in our cabinet were also made by Nicolas Sageot's workshop. Their repetitive inlaid covering should be linked to the presence of the same maker, in this case Toussaint Devoye († 1753), as Pierre Grand discovered.Devoye also supplied marquetry to another cabinetmaker, Pierre Moulin, who in 1712 had married the sister-in-law of the merchant cabinetmaker Noël Gérard, with whom they both had a working relationship.
At the time of his death in 1736, Noël Gérard owned one of the largest cabinetmaking and luxury goods businesses in Paris, which he had set up in the 1720s under the Magasin Général banner in the former mansion of the collector Jabach on rue Neuve Saint-Merry. During the last years of his life, he concentrated all his efforts on his activity as a dealer, having probably considerably reduced his work as a cabinetmaker. Apart from a few pieces, the inventory does not mention any other furniture covered in copper or tortoiseshell, or any marquetry tools. Several chests of drawers are listed, but they are all covered in veneer or blackened wood. However, there is nothing to prevent us from thinking that Gérard had already sold, through his business, commodes in copper and tortoiseshell marquetry, either delivered by Sageot before it ceased trading in 1720, or produced by Pierre Moulin, or, finally, made in his own workshop and covered with inlaid decorations by Toussaint Devoye himself, which the latter produced in large numbers.
André-Charles Boulle
The central panel features one of the figures from the Four Seasons: Bacchus. It is interesting to note that the after-death inventory of André-Charles Boulle, drawn up in March 1732, mentions ‘a box containing models of ornaments made for the cupboards of Mr de La Croix and Langlois, in which are the figures of the Four Seasons’. The four allegories (Saturn, Flora, Ceres and Bacchus) are those of the basins of the Seasons in the gardens of the Château de Versailles.
The figure of Bacchus can be found on a pair of pieces of furniture from the former Wildestein collection[i], a pair of three-leaf cupboard bases from the collection of Baron Salomon Mayer von Rothschild (1774-1855) at Schillersdorf Castle in Silesia (Fig. 16), on a small three-door base from the collection of Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild (1839-1898) at Waddesdon Manor (Fig. 17), and on a three-leaf base from the J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles (Fig. 14).
The Winter and Summer figures can also be found on a piece of furniture from the collections of Baron Robert de Rothschild (1880-1946) at the Hôtel de Marigny (Fig. 18).
Paris, hôtel de Broglie, rue de Varenne, Paris VII, Gérard Mille and Hervé Mille, circa 1955
Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, inv. 72.DA.71
Aylesbury, Waddesdon Manor, Bequest of James de Rothschild, inv. 2350
London, Wallace Collection, inv. F 393.
From the collections of the famous decorator Gérard Mille (Fig. 1)[i] at the Hôtel de Broglie (Fig. 2), this sideboard in tortoiseshell marquetry, engraved brass and stained horn was made by Etienne Levasseur. The central panel features the figure of Bacchus, the model for which was created by the king's cabinetmaker and bronzier, André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732). The side panels incorporate marquetry panels from the Louis XIV period created by the famous cabinetmaker Nicolas Sageot. The ebony sides feature a chased and gilded bronze mask of Hercules. The top is in black marble.
[i] The brothers Gérard and Hervé Mille were among the leading figures of post-war Paris. Gérard Mille, a prominent decorator, had a predilection for the Louis XIV and Louis XVI periods. The neoclassical setting of the flat they shared in the Hôtel Granard (Hôtel de Broglie) on rue de Varenne (the flat that became Maurice Druon's) showcased important pieces of furniture and seating, as well as numerous objets d'art, in a warm and never staid atmosphere. Visitors could admire a pair of antique Greek vases on a Louis XVI mantelpiece... Gérard Mille's personal interiors were published throughout his career (‘Gérard Mille chez lui à Paris’, L'Oeil, n° 100, April 1963.
Eveline Schlumberger, ‘Troisième changement de décor chez Gérard Mille’, Connaissance des Arts, 15 December 1955, no. 46, pp. 104-109.Connaissance des Ars, n°101, July 1960 p. 18, ‘à Rome’, Connaissance des Ars, December 1962 p. 148.148, ‘En hommage à Gérard Mille: l'appartement qui illustre le mieux le style baroque qui couronna sa carriere de decorateur’, Connaissance des arts, no. 146, April 1964, pp. 66-71).His brother Hervé, a close associate of Jean Prouvost, helped create Paris-Match and became editorial director of Marie-Claire and Télé 7 jours. For half a century, whether on rue de Montpensier or rue de Varenne, the Mille brothers' salon was a meeting place for the Parisian intelligentsia, including Coco Chanel and Misia Sert, to whom they were close friends, Jean Cocteau and Bébé Bérard, Pierre and Hélène Lazareff, Colette, Arletty and many others.
A masterpiece by the great Nicolas Sageot, magnificently adapted by Étienne Levasseur, the most talented neoclassical cabinetmaker of the Boulle Revival, this piece of furniture illustrates the luxury Parisian market of the 18th century. While some cabinetmakers copied André-Charles Boulle's turn-of-the-century designs identically, Étienne Levasseur was certainly the most creative, whether or not reusing elements of marquetry or furniture made by Nicolas Sageot. This rare cabinet is a perfect illustration of the genius of the Levasseur-Julliot duo and the cabinetmaker's ability to reappropriate the works of his illustrious predecessor Nicolas Sageot.
A synthesis between the timeless taste of Boulle furniture and the evolution of furniture
The shape and structure of this cabinet are the result of an evolution in interior design. As Alexandre Pradère has pointed out, there was a move away from tall cupboards or large cabinets to furniture with a high base or lower cupboard. Under Louis XIV, cabinets and cupboards with legs were in vogue, and their richest and most elaborate panels were placed at eye level. In contrast, interior decoration in the second half of the 18th century emphasised picture rails, which were stretched with fabric and left free to allow paintings to be hung. Many Boulle cabinets, now too large, were redesigned. The bases were separated from the cabinet itself and often transformed into consoles. The cabinet part was more or less modified to form a piece of furniture at support height.
In short, as Alexandre Pradère has studied, these new forms reflect the vogue for the cabinet in Boulle's ‘antique’ taste, although it is a more modern interpretation adapted to the most fashionable Louis XVI interiors, which reached its apogee in the 1770s.Not a single major auction catalogue devoted a section to the ‘precious furniture of Boule le père’ or to that of the ‘Boule genre’. The prices achieved were particularly high. This success unequivocally illustrates the renewed attraction for Boulle furniture at the end of the Ancien Régime, particularly among financiers and other dignitaries, the traditional clientele of Louis-Quatorzian classicism, such as Blondel de Gagny, Radix de Sainte-Foix and Grimod de la Reynière.A passage from a letter from the Marquis de Marigny to his cabinetmaker Pierre Garnier concerning the choice of furniture for his library is highly revealing of his preference for ebony: ‘You will agree with me that ebony and bronze furniture is much more noble than mahogany furniture.
Étienne Levasseur (1721-1798), Master in 1767
Originally on a chest of drawers by Nicolas Sageot, the marquetry panels were included in a new piece of furniture made by Étienne Levasseur around 1780.
The upper frieze in chased and gilded bronze is characteristic of Levasseur's creations; it can be found on many pieces of furniture such as the pairs of cabinets made around 1770, exhibited at Buckingham Palace (Fig. 4)[i], at the Cincinnati Museum of Arts (Fig. 5)[1] or in a private collection (Fig. 6), while the mask of Hercules on the sides was used for many years by the Levasseur workshop (Fig. 7).Despite Levasseur's status as a household name, his early career remains unclear to this day.
From an advertisement in the Bazar Parisien (1822), his grandson tells us that Étienne Levasseur trained with one of André-Charles Boulle's sons in the 1740s, either André-Charles, better known as ‘Boulle de Sève’ (died 1745), or Charles-Joseph (died 1754). Awarded a master's degree in 1767, he set up business under the name Au Cadran Bleu as a privileged worker on rue du Faubourg-Saint-Antoine.
In 1789 he delivered for the Garde-Meuble royal.After his death in 1798, the workshop was taken over by his son and then his grandson.His work was divided between mahogany, Japanese lacquer and Boulle marquetry furniture.Like our cabinet, we should mention a pair of flap secretaries by Levasseur, each built from a Boulle commode, one of which belongs to the English royal collections and is kept at Windsor Castle (fig. 8) and the other sold in 2010 (fig. 9).Levasseur was one of the leading figures in the production of Boulle furniture in the 1770s and 1780s, alongside his eminent peers Adam Weisweiler, Philippe-Claude Montigny, Jean-Louis Faizelot Delorme and Joseph Baumhauer. They all worked with merchant-merchants, Julliot in particular.
Claude-François Julliot (1727-1794)
Merchants played a dominant role in the luxury goods market in the 18th century. They were merchants, importers and ‘great propagandists’ in the words of Pierre Verlet, who invented, transformed and adapted materials to ‘please their customers by presenting them in the French fashion and according to the taste of the day.Merchants specialised in lacquerware, ceramics, etc.; Boulle furniture was the speciality of Claude-François Julliot.Colonel Saint Paul described Julliot as follows in 1770 in his book Les bonnes adresses de Paris autour de 1770: ‘Julliot, at the corner of the rue d'Orléans opposite the rue de l'Arbre Sec, rue St Honoré, has a large furniture shop and especially works by Boule’. In the sales of the 1770s, he bought Boulle furniture both for himself and for his customers.
As a specialist in Boulle furniture, he carried out inventories for major collectors such as Gaillard de Gagny in 1759, Julienne and Beaujon in 1787 and his peers such as Lazare Duvaux.He was also an expert at the Randon de Boisset sale in 1776, which fetched the highest prices at the time for Boulle furniture from the Louis XIV period, but also revisited.A year later, he delivered a Boulle marquetry commode made by Levasseur to the Comte d'Artois for the Temple[i], now in the Musée du Louvre.
That same year, an inventory of his stock was drawn up following the death of his wife, prior to the sale on 20 November and 11 December. The sale revealed a whole repertoire of ‘Boulle revival’ furniture: old Boulle furniture, more recent pieces, transformed Boulle furniture, copies, overmouldings, etc. Julliot described all the pieces, but unfortunately did not give any real indication of their date or attribution.Claude-François Julliot retired from the market in 1780 and, as his father Claude-Antoine had done, gave way to his son Philippe-François Julliot, known as Julliot fils (1755-1835).
This piece of furniture, made at the end of the 18th century, probably around 1780-1790, by Étienne Levasseur like its ‘counterpart’, also from the Mille collection (fig. 10)[i], probably at the instigation of the merchant Claude-François Julliot, replaced highly original marquetry panels dating from the beginning of the 18th century.
Nicolas Sageothis type of panel can be found on a group of chests of drawers made by Nicolas Sageot. Several chests of drawers of this type with polychrome marquetry in the first or counterpart marquetry are known to exist, including one sold in 1997 (Fig. 11) and a second in 2017 (Fig. 12).
In a statement of Nicolas Sageot's goods, attached to the sale he concluded on 26 July 1720 in favour of Léonard Prieur, merchant jeweller following the court, apart from cupboards, bookcases and desks, ten four-foot [129.92 cm] chests of drawers are mentioned, four of which ‘without tops, also in copper and tortoiseshell marquetry and similarly trimmed with bronzes’, The latter were valued at 2,500 livres, as were ‘four commodes, three feet eight inches [119.10 cm] long, also in copper and tortoise shell marquetry and similarly trimmed with bronze’ and two other ‘commode bodies’ of the same size, and a final one, also inlaid, the dimensions of which are not specified, valued at 300 livres.
It therefore seems likely that commodes modelled on the panels in our cabinet were also made by Nicolas Sageot's workshop. Their repetitive inlaid covering should be linked to the presence of the same maker, in this case Toussaint Devoye († 1753), as Pierre Grand discovered.Devoye also supplied marquetry to another cabinetmaker, Pierre Moulin, who in 1712 had married the sister-in-law of the merchant cabinetmaker Noël Gérard, with whom they both had a working relationship.
At the time of his death in 1736, Noël Gérard owned one of the largest cabinetmaking and luxury goods businesses in Paris, which he had set up in the 1720s under the Magasin Général banner in the former mansion of the collector Jabach on rue Neuve Saint-Merry. During the last years of his life, he concentrated all his efforts on his activity as a dealer, having probably considerably reduced his work as a cabinetmaker. Apart from a few pieces, the inventory does not mention any other furniture covered in copper or tortoiseshell, or any marquetry tools. Several chests of drawers are listed, but they are all covered in veneer or blackened wood. However, there is nothing to prevent us from thinking that Gérard had already sold, through his business, commodes in copper and tortoiseshell marquetry, either delivered by Sageot before it ceased trading in 1720, or produced by Pierre Moulin, or, finally, made in his own workshop and covered with inlaid decorations by Toussaint Devoye himself, which the latter produced in large numbers.
André-Charles Boulle
The central panel features one of the figures from the Four Seasons: Bacchus. It is interesting to note that the after-death inventory of André-Charles Boulle, drawn up in March 1732, mentions ‘a box containing models of ornaments made for the cupboards of Mr de La Croix and Langlois, in which are the figures of the Four Seasons’. The four allegories (Saturn, Flora, Ceres and Bacchus) are those of the basins of the Seasons in the gardens of the Château de Versailles.
The figure of Bacchus can be found on a pair of pieces of furniture from the former Wildestein collection[i], a pair of three-leaf cupboard bases from the collection of Baron Salomon Mayer von Rothschild (1774-1855) at Schillersdorf Castle in Silesia (Fig. 16), on a small three-door base from the collection of Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild (1839-1898) at Waddesdon Manor (Fig. 17), and on a three-leaf base from the J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles (Fig. 14).
The Winter and Summer figures can also be found on a piece of furniture from the collections of Baron Robert de Rothschild (1880-1946) at the Hôtel de Marigny (Fig. 18).