拍品专文
This library chair, designed in the antique manner with Egyptian-striated tablets, Etruscan-pearl strings, paterae and Bacchic thyrsae finials, has its arched crest supported by a tripod-altar splat. Like the contemporary Parisian 'Athenienne' tripod, the latter recalls Apollo's serpent-entwined Delphic altar. A sketch for such an altar, with confronted serpents and hermed supports, was executed in the early 1770's by Jean-Guillaume Moitte (d.1810; G.Gramaccini, Jean-Guillaume Moitte, Berlin, 1993, vol.2, fig.34). Such drawings no doubt inspired the related chairs which incorporate an Isis sun-sphere guarded by serpents in the Egyptian manner, such as that illustrated in J.M. Greber, Abraham und David Roentgen, Munich, 1980, Band 1, p.255, as well as the suite of chairs stamped by the Parisian menuisier Jean-Baptiste Demay, sold in Paris, Picard, 21 December 1994, lot 135. The Demay chairs, however, were unmounted, an embellishment which would suggest the involvement of an ébéniste.
A closely related armchair, formerly in the collection of the marquis de Vibraye and illustrated in C. Baulez, L'Estampille L'Objet d'Art, September 1996, pp. 97-118, is attributed by Baulez to Johann Gottlieb Frost (d. 1814) and François Rémond and dated circa 1785. Rémond is known to have supplied ormolu mounts to Frost between 1782 and 1789 and Frost is further recorded as having headed the Paris branch of Roentgen's workshop, which was established to promote Roentgen's furniture in France. In a letter dated 29 June 1779 to Count zu Wied, Roentgen mentions Frost as his unmarried representative and assistant in Paris. By 1785 the latter was elected maître and he seems to have taken over Roentgen's workshop completely in Paris, as on the 27 December 1785 he advertised in the Journal Général de France, p. 3453:
Le sieur Frost, successeur du sieur David Roentgen, ébéniste-méchanicien du Roi et de la Reine, tient à présent, rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs, le grand magasin d'Ébénisterie que ce dernier avoit ci-devant rue de Grenelle Saint-Honoré, et continue de vendre des meubles très recherchés par leur forme et leur poli.
As this reveals, he continued to produce furniture in the manner of Roentgen and counted the vicomtesse de Talleyrand, the marquis de Clermont-Amboise and the barons de Staël and de Batz amongst his clients. The atelier did not, however survive the revolution and finally closed on 24 December 1791.
This fauteuil was, therefore almost certainly executed either by David Roentgen in his Neuwied workshop and sold in Paris through Frost, or supplied by Frost to Roentgen's designs.This hypothesis is further underlined by an advertisement of January 1781, in which special mention is made of Roentgen's fauteuils de Cabinet:
Il y a dans le magasins du sieure Roentgen ébéniste, ci devant rue Saint-Martin, vis à vis la rue de VIRTBOIS,...des bureaux de differentes formes, des fauteuils de cabinet, des tables de toilette....
A chair of identical design, but with coiling serpent to the back, is attributed to Abraham (d. 1793) and David (d. 1807) Roentgen of Neuwied am Rhein by D. Fabian, Abraham und David Roentgen, Bad Neustadt, 1996, p. 235, fig. 507.
A closely related armchair, formerly in the collection of the marquis de Vibraye and illustrated in C. Baulez, L'Estampille L'Objet d'Art, September 1996, pp. 97-118, is attributed by Baulez to Johann Gottlieb Frost (d. 1814) and François Rémond and dated circa 1785. Rémond is known to have supplied ormolu mounts to Frost between 1782 and 1789 and Frost is further recorded as having headed the Paris branch of Roentgen's workshop, which was established to promote Roentgen's furniture in France. In a letter dated 29 June 1779 to Count zu Wied, Roentgen mentions Frost as his unmarried representative and assistant in Paris. By 1785 the latter was elected maître and he seems to have taken over Roentgen's workshop completely in Paris, as on the 27 December 1785 he advertised in the Journal Général de France, p. 3453:
Le sieur Frost, successeur du sieur David Roentgen, ébéniste-méchanicien du Roi et de la Reine, tient à présent, rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs, le grand magasin d'Ébénisterie que ce dernier avoit ci-devant rue de Grenelle Saint-Honoré, et continue de vendre des meubles très recherchés par leur forme et leur poli.
As this reveals, he continued to produce furniture in the manner of Roentgen and counted the vicomtesse de Talleyrand, the marquis de Clermont-Amboise and the barons de Staël and de Batz amongst his clients. The atelier did not, however survive the revolution and finally closed on 24 December 1791.
This fauteuil was, therefore almost certainly executed either by David Roentgen in his Neuwied workshop and sold in Paris through Frost, or supplied by Frost to Roentgen's designs.This hypothesis is further underlined by an advertisement of January 1781, in which special mention is made of Roentgen's fauteuils de Cabinet:
Il y a dans le magasins du sieure Roentgen ébéniste, ci devant rue Saint-Martin, vis à vis la rue de VIRTBOIS,...des bureaux de differentes formes, des fauteuils de cabinet, des tables de toilette....
A chair of identical design, but with coiling serpent to the back, is attributed to Abraham (d. 1793) and David (d. 1807) Roentgen of Neuwied am Rhein by D. Fabian, Abraham und David Roentgen, Bad Neustadt, 1996, p. 235, fig. 507.