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Lot Essay
This striking pair of à l’antique gueridons, with their dazzling silvered surface, recreate the taste for the spectacular ensembles of silver furniture supplied to many of the courts of Europe from the end of 17th to the beginning of the 18th century. Examples of silver furniture were extraordinary symbols of wealth and power, none more so than the legendary pieces supplied to Louis XIV for his palace at Versailles which were famously melted down in 1689 to pay for his wars. Although no precedent has yet been found for other silver metal furniture being made in the Empire period, the taste for silvering is certainly reflected in the famous Salon d' Argent with its spectacular silvered wood seat furniture and boiseries created for Napoleon's sister Caroline Murat in the Palais d' Elysée circa 1805.
THE DESIGN
The 'antique' form of these gueridons, with their acanthus-wrapped pedestals and 'Roman' lion's paw feet, reflects the revived taste for antiquity promoted by Napoleon's architect Charles Percier (1764-1838). Designs for similar gueridons appear in a sketchbook of drawings by Percier, (illustrated in J-P. Garric ed., Charles Percier Architecture and Design in an Age of Revolutions, exh. cat., New York, 2016, p. 186, fig. 8B.4. A closely related acanthus-wrapped lion's paw foot appears in the frame for a view of a celebration in honor of the marriage Napoleon and Marie-Louise in 1810 ( Garric op. cit., p. 283, cat. 137). A further related pair of ormolu gueridons, attributed to the firm of Thomire, was on the Paris art market in 1993, and later with Richard Redding Antiques, Zurich.
TECHNICAL ANALYSIS AND DATING THE GUERIDONS
Although the present silvered surface of the gueridons uses the electro-plating method which was not in wide use until the 1840s (when the English silversmith Henry Elkington was granted a patent for electroplating, although the process had been discovered as early as 1805 by the Italian chemist Luigi Valentino Brugnatelli), several technical and constructional features of these gueridons point to an earlier date. The interior of the plinth bases show splashes of silver residue indicating an earlier mercury silvering; both the base and the frieze of the top are made in several sections, and the feet are cast separately, which would not have been the case in the mid-19th century when they were able to cast much bigger sections without joins; the feet show delicate, linear tool marks which are typical of the surface treatment on Empire metalwork and also show the tool marks of hand-burnishing; the central iron shaft and its securing nut are both hand-forged, which one would not expect by the mid-19th century; and the segmentally arranged oak panels to the underside of the top are typical of late Louis XVI and Empire cabinet-making techniques for tables of this form.
THE BRANDS
While scholarship is divided regarding the authenticity of the brands on these fascinating tables, one intriguing possibility for the crowned 'N' is that it could refer to the château de Neuilly, as the same brand, with its distinctive Napoleonic era crown surmounted by a cross, appears on a Consulat day bed by Jacob Frères in the Wrightsman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where it is identified as being the brand of Neuilly (Illustrated in F. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection, Greeenwich, 1966, vol. I, cat. 45, pp. 60-3). Neuilly was acquired in 1804 by Napoleon's sister Caroline, wife of the celebrated general Joachim Murat. The Wrightsman daybed also bears the brand of the neighboring château de Villeneuve L' Etang, also acquired by the Murat's at this time, and the daybed descended in the Murat family until being being sold at auction in Paris in 1961. When the Murats became king and queen of Naples in 1808, both châteaux were given to Caroline's sister Pauline Borghese, but an inventory taken of the contents of Neuilly in 1809 makes no mention of the gueridons. Neuilly and its contents reverted to the crown with the restoration of the monarchy in 1814. In 1818 the duc d'Orléans, later Louis-Phillipe of France (1773-1850), bought the château and commissioned the architect Pierre Fontaine to refurbish it, although pieces supplied to him during this period are marked 'LPN' rather than just the simple 'N". The château was eventually destroyed in 1848.
THE DESIGN
The 'antique' form of these gueridons, with their acanthus-wrapped pedestals and 'Roman' lion's paw feet, reflects the revived taste for antiquity promoted by Napoleon's architect Charles Percier (1764-1838). Designs for similar gueridons appear in a sketchbook of drawings by Percier, (illustrated in J-P. Garric ed., Charles Percier Architecture and Design in an Age of Revolutions, exh. cat., New York, 2016, p. 186, fig. 8B.4. A closely related acanthus-wrapped lion's paw foot appears in the frame for a view of a celebration in honor of the marriage Napoleon and Marie-Louise in 1810 ( Garric op. cit., p. 283, cat. 137). A further related pair of ormolu gueridons, attributed to the firm of Thomire, was on the Paris art market in 1993, and later with Richard Redding Antiques, Zurich.
TECHNICAL ANALYSIS AND DATING THE GUERIDONS
Although the present silvered surface of the gueridons uses the electro-plating method which was not in wide use until the 1840s (when the English silversmith Henry Elkington was granted a patent for electroplating, although the process had been discovered as early as 1805 by the Italian chemist Luigi Valentino Brugnatelli), several technical and constructional features of these gueridons point to an earlier date. The interior of the plinth bases show splashes of silver residue indicating an earlier mercury silvering; both the base and the frieze of the top are made in several sections, and the feet are cast separately, which would not have been the case in the mid-19th century when they were able to cast much bigger sections without joins; the feet show delicate, linear tool marks which are typical of the surface treatment on Empire metalwork and also show the tool marks of hand-burnishing; the central iron shaft and its securing nut are both hand-forged, which one would not expect by the mid-19th century; and the segmentally arranged oak panels to the underside of the top are typical of late Louis XVI and Empire cabinet-making techniques for tables of this form.
THE BRANDS
While scholarship is divided regarding the authenticity of the brands on these fascinating tables, one intriguing possibility for the crowned 'N' is that it could refer to the château de Neuilly, as the same brand, with its distinctive Napoleonic era crown surmounted by a cross, appears on a Consulat day bed by Jacob Frères in the Wrightsman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where it is identified as being the brand of Neuilly (Illustrated in F. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection, Greeenwich, 1966, vol. I, cat. 45, pp. 60-3). Neuilly was acquired in 1804 by Napoleon's sister Caroline, wife of the celebrated general Joachim Murat. The Wrightsman daybed also bears the brand of the neighboring château de Villeneuve L' Etang, also acquired by the Murat's at this time, and the daybed descended in the Murat family until being being sold at auction in Paris in 1961. When the Murats became king and queen of Naples in 1808, both châteaux were given to Caroline's sister Pauline Borghese, but an inventory taken of the contents of Neuilly in 1809 makes no mention of the gueridons. Neuilly and its contents reverted to the crown with the restoration of the monarchy in 1814. In 1818 the duc d'Orléans, later Louis-Phillipe of France (1773-1850), bought the château and commissioned the architect Pierre Fontaine to refurbish it, although pieces supplied to him during this period are marked 'LPN' rather than just the simple 'N". The château was eventually destroyed in 1848.