A Chinese lacquered high-backed piece of furniture Paris,... Lot 67

A Chinese lacquered high-backed piece of furniture Paris, Regency period, circa 1720 Chinese lacquer, European varnish; gilt bronzes H. 138.5 cm, W. 155.5 cm, D. 49 cm This piece of furniture is one of the first examples of the use of Far Eastern lacquer panels in French furniture in the early 1720s. The architecture is still very much influenced by the rigors of the "Grand Siècle" with its rectilinear forms, its plain base with a wide apron and its ornamentation of chased and gilded bronzes borrowed from the repertoire of the late reign. The double reserve side panels are painted in European varnish and underlined by gilded bronze strips. The originality of this piece of furniture lies in the covering of the front panels with two Chinese lacquer panels decorated with flowering branches and birds. The motifs, done in gold on a black background, are richly enriched by the presence of a bright red applied with a certain opulence. The decoration is completed on the sides by panels in "Martin varnish". The luxuriance of these oriental lacquers is matched by the gilded bronzes, which, with their finely chiseled falls, hooves, apron and keyhole escutcheons, complete the brilliance of this piece of furniture. It should be noted that the famous Ramsay family kept in its collections a piece of furniture with a structure and decoration of Chinese lacquer panels very similar to our piece of furniture (fig. 1). The proportions and workmanship of our piece of furniture are reminiscent of the work of a great master of the first half of the 18th century, Pierre II Migeon (1701-1758), a member of one of the most important cabinet-making dynasties of the 18th century. He made a number of pieces of furniture of this type, mostly in veneer, with rounded corners and more or less flared sides, with or without bronzes. Nevertheless, lacquered furniture is quite rare for this cabinetmaker, as they are generally chests of drawers, mainly in Chinese lacquer (fig. 2). A fine example of the fascination of China for Europeans, this piece of furniture, with its pleasant proportions, is a rare example of the production of the 1720s, combining Far Eastern lacquers and European lines in a harmonious synthesis that already heralded the production of the reign of Louis XV. Several pieces of furniture from prestigious collections can be compared to the one we are presenting. Let us mention, for example, the cabinet at the height of support of the collection of Mr. André Saint which comprises lacquer panels with very similar decorations of birds (fig. 3). In the same register, a very beautiful Chinese lacquer panel, dated from the beginning of the 18th century and kept in the Steinau Castle, presents an iconography similar to those flanking the leaves of our piece of furniture (fig. 4).