AN EMPIRE ORMOLU-MOUNTED MAHOGANY MEUBLE D'APPUI

BY JACOB FRÈRES

细节
AN EMPIRE ORMOLU-MOUNTED MAHOGANY MEUBLE D'APPUI
By Jacob Frères
The rectangular fossil black marble top above two doors centred by two scantily-draped maidens with billowing drapery, one standing on a scallop-shell and holding two dolphins, the other pouring water from a jug and standing on two cornucopiae, flanked by tapering pilasters headed by an Egyptian mask wearing a nemes headdress and enclosing four drawers, above an inverted breakfront plinth and on hipped lion paw feet on raised rectangular plinths, the marble inscribed 159 the top inscrisbed 181 and stamped JACOB FRERES R. MESLEE
33¾in. (86cm.) wide; 34½in. (87.5cm.) high; 20½in. (52cm.) deep
来源
Anonymous sale Paris Ader-Picard Tajan Paris, 19 June 1991, lot 181.

拍品专文

This stamp was employed by Georges II (d. 1803) and François-Honoré- Georges Jacob (d. 1841) between 1796 and 1803.
The distinctive figures of Venus also feature on an amboyna meuble d'appui by Jacob Frères in the Victoria and Albert Museum (W.9-1971). Enriched with gilt-bronze and bronze mounts attributed to Pierre-Philippe Thomire (d.1843), it displays a third Venus wringing the water from her hair, which is directly inspired by Jean Goujon's Venus Anadyomene of the mid-16th Century (S. Jervis, Art and Design in Europe and America 1800-1900, London, 1987, pp.22-23). Although these mounts have been linked to the bronzier Pierre-Philippe Thomire (d.1843), the closely related Apollo mount that features on the commode supplied by Jacob-Desmalter for the chambre de l'Impératrice at the château de Compiène in 1810 was executed by the sculptor Charles-Antoine Chaudet
Possibly inspired by the designs of Percier and Fontaine, related mounts feature on further pieces stamped by Jacob Frères, such as that sold in Paris, Drouot, 8 December 1989, lot 159.