Attribué à l'atelier de CÉSAR BAGARD (NANCY, ... Lot n° 33

Large table mirror Louis XIV period - Nancy, early 18th century Wood called "Sainte Lucie"; mirror H. 70 cm, L. 54,5 cm Made of wood called "Sainte Lucie", this table mirror adopts a characteristic shape of the first years of the 18th century for this type of object. Curved in the upper part, it splits on the sides and resumes a straight shape at the base. The perimeter is entirely carved with a fine decoration of foliage, interspersed with birds and a fruit basket. At the back, a rider allows to place it on a table. In the prestigious Georges Bac collection, dedicated to mirrors and frames in carved wood, a frame called "Christ" has scrolls and foliage motifs similar to our work (fig. 1). Two large stilt-walkers appear at the top, similar to those carved on the sides of our work. This frame, described as cherry wood, is shown as coming from the workshop of César Bagard (1620-1709) in Nancy. The wood used in this example and in our work, strongly tending to red, is also called "St. Lucy's wood", coming from a forest near the convent of the Minims of St. Lucie-du-Mont near Nancy. This material, both soft and of a particular color, close to the cherry tree, interested Lorraine artists from the second half of the 17th century. It was César Bagard but also Nicolas-François Foulon (1628- 1698), active in Nancy, who brought woodcarving up to date by creating in their workshops very delicate objects such as boxes, torches, tobacco graters or religious sculptures. They tried to reproduce in wood the numerous goldsmith's and silversmith's objects that were melted down in order to finance the wars of Louis XIV. The fame of the Bagard workshop led to the nickname "Bagard wood". Let us mention a box and a candlestick in cherry wood preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum made around 1700-1720, with the same type of decoration and treatment of the motifs as our work (fig. 2 and 3). It should be noted that there are very few signed pieces and that a certain attribution to a particular workshop is not easy.