Charles CRESSENT, after - Lot 90

Charles CRESSENT, after Large "à la Régence" chest of drawers in satin-finish veneer, chased bronze and gilding, opening with two long drawers with oak inlay. The front and sides feature an inlaid decoration of diamond points and crosses in frames. The top and bottom drawers are adorned with a mask of Diana for the former and a large keyhole with prancing dragons for the latter. The sides are embellished with palmettes. The straight jambs, curved and pinched for the fronts, are embellished with espagnolettes topped with aigrettes. They stand on arched feet fitted with lion paw hooves. French red corbin marble top. Paris. Partly 18th century. Circa 1770. H_ 87,5 cm; W_ 148 cm; D_ 64 cm Charles Cressent Amiens (Somme), December 16, 1685 - Paris, January 10, 1768 The immense talent of Charles Cressent, an artist trained both as a cabinetmaker and sculptor, who worked from 1719 to 1756, is responsible for furniture that is recognizable by its lines and the originality and quality of its gilded bronzes. Charles Cressent was awarded the title of master sculptor in Paris in 1714, then joined the workshop of cabinetmaker Joseph Poitou. When Poitou died in 1719, he married his widow and took over the workshop on rue Notre Dame des Victoires, inheriting the title of cabinetmaker to the Regent. Cressent designed the furniture and created the models for the bronzes executed under his direction, taking on the corpo¬rations of founders and gilders. An artist of considerable renown, he worked for the Orléans family, the Portuguese King John V and the Elector of Bavaria Charles Albert, as well as for Parisian art lovers, financiers and high-ranking civil servants. He opted for simplified marquetry. The veneering on all these commodes almost always consists of a satin-finish frieze laid out in chevrons, opposite or concentric, sometimes drawing diamond shapes and points, on which the predominant gilded bronze decoration develops. Charles Cressent excelled in the manufacture of commodes, which make up the majority of Cressent's production and mark the cabinetmaking of his time. A recent invention, from the 1720s onwards, they became increasingly popular throughout the 18th century, becoming a piece of furniture of the highest status in bedrooms and, later, in living rooms and boudoirs. From the 1720s onwards, Charles Cressent produced tall pedestal chests of drawers, known as "à la Régence", where the drawers are arranged in two rows separated by a wooden crosspiece and wide gilded bronze bands to protect the edges. The compositions are then centered by bronze masks borrowed from classical mythology, or by mosaic motifs. The archetypal pieces produced in Boulle's workshop were much admired by contemporaries and collected by Parisian financiers who soon became Cressent's clients, such as Crozat. The prototype of this series of commodes "à cadres de bronze doré" is the example in the Musée de Meaux. All the pieces in this series feature the same gilded bronze bands framing the drawers, with their characteristic rounded corners and heart-shaped openwork motifs in the center of the sides. In the center and on the sides of the same commodes are several models of the masks that Cressent also uses on cabinets and flat desks. A mask of Diana adorns the one from the Surmont sale and two others sold in Paris, one in 1968, the other in 1970; a bearded mask of Bacchus is found on the Meaux commode; a mask of a round-faced Bacchante, wearing a headdress of grapes, adorns the commode preserved in Burgundy; a mask of Apollo or Daphne wearing a headdress of laurel adorns the commode from the former Sade collection and the one from the former Saint-Alary collection. Cressent used different models for lock escutcheons, an original model featuring sea horses or prancing dragons, a large cartouche like the Dupleix desk and the Meaux commode, and another model in the shape of a shield adorned with horns of plenty and surmounted by a dragon.