J.-E. Zwiener & L. Messagé

Rare Pair of Vitrines, attributed to J.-E. Zwiener and L. Messagé, France, Circa 1885 Height: 150 cm; Width: 145 cm; Depth: 44 cm Rare pair of Louis XV-inspired display cabinets with curved sides in violet wood veneer and gilt bronze. Glazed on all sides, they open onto two doors with gilt bronze and chased rocaille-style foliage frames. Resting on four curved legs ending in lion paws, the whole is covered with a "breche de benou" marble top. This model was most probably designed by L. Messagé. Biography Joseph-Emmanuel Zwiener, born in Germany in 1849, moved to rue de la Roquette in 1880, where his workshops produced a large quantity of furniture. He copied almost every style, from "Boulle" to "Louis XVI", as well as extraordinary, highly personal interpretations of an exuberant Louis XV style. He took part in the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889, where he won a gold medal for presenting a remarkable copy of "the most famous piece of furniture in the world", the King Louis XV desk, the work of Riesener and Oeben. The Exhibition catalog praised his work as "perfect". Like François Linke, another famous cabinetmaker of the period, Zwiener had most of his bronzes, judged to be of superior craftsmanship, modeled by Léon Messagé. Léon Messagé, an ornamentalist and draughtsman, favored rocaille asymmetry in his ornamental designs, as found in the collections of ornamentalists such as Nicolas Pineau and J. A. Meissonnier in the first half of the 18th century. However, Léon Messagé was not content to copy his predecessors. He was original, even extravagant, as shown by some of the drawings in his "Cahier des Dessins et Croquis style Louis XV". He worked with a large number of drawings on gray paper, before moving on to the execution of a reduced or life-size model in relief, wax or terracotta. From 1885, Léon Messagé worked with two major Parisian furniture manufacturers: Joseph-Emmanuel Zwiener and François Linke. François Linke, in particular, developed his own high-quality style, sometimes referred to as the "Linke style", as early as the 1900 Exposition Universelle. It seems that one of the main reasons for his immense success and formal imagination was the strong association that existed between him and this great draughtsman. The mutual influences between these three artists are clearly visible in a number of their works. BIibliography : Catalog de l'Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1889.