A PAIR OF LOUIS XV ORMOLU-MOUNTED CHINESE LACQUER ENCOIGNURES
Lot 500 THE PROPERTY OF A CHICAGO COLLECTOR (LOT 500)

A PAIR OF LOUIS XV ORMOLU-MOUNTED CHINESE LACQUER ENCOIGNURES

ALMOST CERTAINLY BY JEAN-CHARLES ELLAUME, CIRCA 1755

Closed15 April 2011

Price Realised

USD 37,500

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A PAIR OF LOUIS XV ORMOLU-MOUNTED CHINESE LACQUER ENCOIGNURES
ALMOST CERTAINLY BY JEAN-CHARLES ELLAUME, CIRCA 1755
Each with Spanish brocatelle molded marble top above a pair of doors decorated with flowering stems and birds within a C-scrolled ormolu cartouche, on cabriole legs terminating in gilt sabots, one indistinctly stamped E... to right corner beneath marble, variations to construction
35 in. (89 cm.) high; 36 in. (92 cm.) wide; 26 in. (66 cm.) deep (2)

Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 17 May 1968, lot 60 (attributed to Dubois).
The Carraro Rizzoli Collection; Christie's, London, 14 December 2006, lot 20.

Specialist note

Jean-Charles Ellaume, maître in 1754.

These corner commodes, elegantly serpentined in sarcophagus scrolls, are likely to have been conceived en suite with a commode, and their vignettes of bird-inhabited gardens in colored golds would have harmonized with the colorful Chinese floral wallpapers imported by leading Parisian marchands-merciers. Roman acanthus and scalloped cartouches enrich the serpentined ribbon-bands of ormolu that frame the lacquered tablets, which would have been cut from an early 18th century Chinese screen or cabinet.

The encoignures almost certainly bear the brand of Jean-Charles Ellaume, who traded for over thirty years from the rue Traversiere-Saint-Antoine. His stamp also features on a related commode, decorated in vernis noir et or, illustrated P. Kjellberg, Le Mobilier Francais du XVIII Siecle, Paris, 2002, p.339.