CIRCA 1715-20, THE JAPANESE LACQUER 17TH CENTURY, PARTIALLY LATER MOUNTED IN THE LATE 18TH/FIRST HALF 19TH CENTURY

This Régence commode, incorporating drawers from a Japanese cabinet, belongs to a small group of early eighteenth-century French case furniture decorated with exotic lacquer. Utilizing Chinese and Japanese cabinets in Western interiors was extremely fashionable throughout the second half of the seventeenth century, when such pieces were almost always displayed on European carved giltwood bases. In some cases, the interior of an Asian carcass was removed and subsequently inserted into an European-made case, which was then placed on an elaborate stand. Whereas the fashion of placing Asian cabinets on western stands waned, the practice of installing Asian interiors in European carcasses prevailed and eventually culminated in the norm of mounting sheets of Asian lacquer panels on western furniture, a fashion prevalent throughout the second half of the 1700s. As most new trends, this practice too, was promoted by the Parisian marchands-mercier, who quickly embraced, and often created, new fads in the hopes of increasing profits. Such an experimental marchand-mercier was Thomas-Joachim Hébert (1687-1773), who showed a distinct predilection for furniture decorated with lacquer and vernis Martin throughout his career. He is known to have traded lacquer panels with Amsterdam dealers as early as the 1720s, when the city had the monopoly of import of such goods from the East India Company. In fact, a comparable commode with ten drawers was listed in his inventory as early as 22 May 1724: une petite commode de 3 pieds 4 pouces de long, garnie de dix tiroirs de verny de la chine, 120 livres. He later worked extensively for the royal court as one of the fournisseurs de la Cour, a title which he most probably obtained through the intervention of Louis XV's mistress, the comtesse de Mailly. Having commissioned furniture from Bernard Van Risen Burgh (BVRB), Matthieu Criaerd and Dubois, he is perhaps chiefly remembered for supplying in 1737 the celebrated Japanese lacquer commode by BVRB to Queen Marie Leszczyńska for her chambre de retraite at the château de Fontainebleau, see D. Alcouffe, Le Mobilier du Musée du Louvre, Dijon, 1993, vol. I, cat. 42.
The present lot is particularly rare as it is among the earliest examples of the interior structure of a Japanese cabinet being inserted into a European commode. Other examples survived but they are few and far between. A comparable pair of Japanese lacquer commodes bearing lacquered tops, assigned with certainty to a Parisian workshop and dated 1715-20 is in the Pagodenburg pavilion of Schloss Nyhmphenburg, Munich, see B. Langer, Die Möbel der Schlösser Nymphenburg und Schleißheim, Munich, 2000, pp. 75-89. A single Japanese lacquer commode with marble top and attributed to BVRB is illustrated J. Ronfort, J-D.Augarde, B. Langer, Brigitte, “Nouveaux Aspects de la vie et de l'œuvre de Bernard II Vanrisamburgh.” L'Estampille-L'Objet d'Art, April 1995, Nr. 290, p. 35, two commodes are illustrated T. Wolvesperges, Le Meuble français en laque au XVIIIe siècle, Paris 2000, p.80 fig.60. and p.81 fig.61. A comparable commode most recently sold Sotheby's, New York, 20 April 2018, lot 1015 ($50,000).