.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Recognized and used since Antiquity, Algerian onyx was rediscovered around 1848 by Jean Baptiste Del Monte (1822-1893) who by chance found fragments of onyx used to repair the road from Tlemcen to Oran. Del Monte bought the old quarries at Aïn-Tekbalet, called Bled Rekam, located near Tlemcen and sold them to a banker in Paris for 100,000 francs. In 1855 their ownership passed to Alphonse Pallu & Cie with workshops at 31/33 rue Popincour and a showroom at 24 Boulevard des Italiens. The precious semi-translucent Algerian marble, known as onyx, was said to cost its weight in gold because, although easy to quarry close to the surface, much of it is blighted by imperfections and the cost of transporting it on poor roads to port was so high. For example, when the most beautiful French or Italian marbles cost 1,500 francs per cubic meter, onyx cost 4,000 francs.
La Compagnie Pallu des Marbres Onyx d'Algérie was managed by Pallu’s nephew Gustave Viot (1828 - 1897) and the well-known ‘sculpteur ornemaniste’ Eugène Cornu (1827 - 1899) was employed as designer and artistic director. Eugène Cornu had worked for various manufacturers including the maker of furniture and objets de luxe Maison Tahan, and his signature appears to many of the works of art by the Société des marbres et onyx d'Algérie which were awarded at the international exhibitions in London, 1862, Paris, 1867, and Vienna, 1873. After 1878 Henri Journet becomes manager of the company, thereafter known as Henri Journet & Cie., and their wares are complimented at the 1884 Palais de l'industrie exhibition on how the tones of gilt and silvered bronze ornamentations combine marvelously with the onyx marble.
The precious splendor of onyx made it the material of choice during the luxuriant Second Empire when commissions were undertaken for the Château de Ferrières, the Hôtel de La Païva and the balustrade of the grand staircase at the Opéra Garnier. The present model of monumental vase candelabra is visible in an engraving for the stand of the Société des marbres et onyx d'Algérie at the 1878 Paris Exposition universelle and another example is visible in a period photograph of the Cornelia M. Stewart House, New York (demolished in 1901), which was coined the ‘Marble Palace’ for many of its fifty-five rooms were finished in marble.
La Compagnie Pallu des Marbres Onyx d'Algérie was managed by Pallu’s nephew Gustave Viot (1828 - 1897) and the well-known ‘sculpteur ornemaniste’ Eugène Cornu (1827 - 1899) was employed as designer and artistic director. Eugène Cornu had worked for various manufacturers including the maker of furniture and objets de luxe Maison Tahan, and his signature appears to many of the works of art by the Société des marbres et onyx d'Algérie which were awarded at the international exhibitions in London, 1862, Paris, 1867, and Vienna, 1873. After 1878 Henri Journet becomes manager of the company, thereafter known as Henri Journet & Cie., and their wares are complimented at the 1884 Palais de l'industrie exhibition on how the tones of gilt and silvered bronze ornamentations combine marvelously with the onyx marble.
The precious splendor of onyx made it the material of choice during the luxuriant Second Empire when commissions were undertaken for the Château de Ferrières, the Hôtel de La Païva and the balustrade of the grand staircase at the Opéra Garnier. The present model of monumental vase candelabra is visible in an engraving for the stand of the Société des marbres et onyx d'Algérie at the 1878 Paris Exposition universelle and another example is visible in a period photograph of the Cornelia M. Stewart House, New York (demolished in 1901), which was coined the ‘Marble Palace’ for many of its fifty-five rooms were finished in marble.