A Louis XVI style painted and parcel-gilt beechwood fire screen, late 19th century, after the model by Jean-Baptiste Claude Sené for Marie-Antoinette's cabinet de toilette at the Château de Saint-Cloud
Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 EUR
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Read more.Lot Details
Description
the uprights formed as fluted columns surmounted by finials, the top rail decorated with a frieze of rosettes, surmounted by a reclining female figure holding a cornucopia, the feet carved with female figures, with a cotton upholstery embroidered with a design of scrolling foliage and garlands, with a shipping label beneath one upright inscribed Mitford
Height 46 1/2 in., width 29 1/2 in., depth 18 7/8 in. ; Haut. 118 cm, larg. 75 cm, prof. 48 cm
Collection Nancy Mitford (The Hon. Mrs. Rodd);
Collection Lady Gladwyn;
Christie's, London, 13 June 1991, lot 47;
Galerie Steinitz, Paris;
Private Collection, Paris.
F.J.B. Watson, Louis XVI Furniture, Londres, 1960, ill. p. 221
RELATED LITERATURE:
P. Verlet, French Royal Furniture, Londres, 1963, p. 185
D.O. Kisluk-Grosheide, W. Koeppe et W. Rieder, European Furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art : Highlights of the Collection, New York, 2006, p. 207-209
J.-D. Serena, A. Rostaing and B. Chevallier, Saint-Cloud, le palais retrouvé, Paris, Paris, 2013, p. 304
Our firescreen follows the model designed by Jean-Baptiste-Claude Sené around 1788 for Marie-Antoinette's cabinet de toilette at the Château de Saint-Cloud, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. 41.205.3a, b), alongside a daybed (inv. 41.205.1) and a bergère (inv. 41.205.2). The polychrome decoration of the original model is attributed to Louis-François Chatard (1749–1819), painter and gilder to the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne.
Under the Second Empire, Empress Eugénie, captivated by the memory of Marie-Antoinette, revives the Louis XVI taste at Saint-Cloud itself, entrusting Joseph-Pierre-François Jeanselme and Michel-Victor Cruchet (1815–1899) with the recreation of seat furniture and firescreens inspired by the 18th century (cf. Mobilier National, inv. GMT 8302/002 and GMT 1408). Her own cabinet de toilette at the palace is thus furnished with a firescreen surmounted by finials, its fabric bearing her EN cipher within a garland of flowers (cf. Saint-Cloud, le palais retrouvé, Paris, 2013, p. 304), evidence of the Second Empire's wish to align itself with the artistic traditions of the Ancien Régime.
In the mid-20th century, our firescreen appears in the Paris apartment of the British writer Nancy Mitford (1904–1973), photographed in her sitting room at 7 rue Monsieur, where she lived from the postwar years until 1967. The author of the novels The Pursuit of Love (1945) and Love in a Cold Climate (1949), she also wrote four biographies devoted to Ancien Régime France, including Madame de Pompadour (1954) and The Sun King (1966).
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