A FRENCH ORMOLU-MOUNTED TULIPWOOD, AMARANTH, AND MAHOGANY BIBLIOTHEQUE

This display cabinet is in the Louis XVI revival style which was popularly revived during the third quarter of the 19th century. With reinvention typical of the period, its motifs and gilt-bronze mounts are lifted from the oeuvre of Jean Henri Riesener, the greatest Parisian ébéniste of the Louis XVI period, but they are employed here on a vitrine, a form of cabinet which did not exist in Riesener’s time.

The Parisian firm of Grohé was established in the mid-1820s by Guillaume and Jean-Michel Grohé. They exhibited at the major exhibitions throughout the 19th century and supplied furniture to the French Royal households at Tuileries, Saint-Cloud and Fontainebleau, and to Queen Victoria for Windsor Castle. Grohé was responsible for the cabinetwork of the celebrate cradle presented by the City of Paris to the Empress Eugénie in 1856 which on public exhibition before the birth of the Prince Imperial was admired by 25,000 visitors. Following Guillaume's retirement in 1861, the younger brother Jean-Michel managed the business until 1884, when it ceased trading.

For a closely related cabinet attributed to Grohé Frères see Lot 138.