Live Auction 18366The Collector: European and English 18th and 19th Century Furniture and Works of Art, Silver, Ceramics and Gold Boxes
A PAIR OF IMPORTANT FRENCH GILT AND PATINATED-BRONZE MOUNTED JAPANESE MENUKI AND LACQUERED BAMBOO LAMPS
Lot 234

A PAIR OF IMPORTANT FRENCH GILT AND PATINATED-BRONZE MOUNTED JAPANESE MENUKI AND LACQUERED BAMBOO LAMPS

THE DECORATED BAMBOO JAPANESE, MEIJI PERIOD (LATE 19TH CENTURY), THE MOUNTS AND FITTINGS BY FERDINAND BARBEDIENNE, PARIS, CIRCA 1890

Closed15 July 2020

Price Realised

GBP 22,500

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A PAIR OF IMPORTANT FRENCH GILT AND PATINATED-BRONZE MOUNTED JAPANESE MENUKI AND LACQUERED BAMBOO LAMPS
THE DECORATED BAMBOO JAPANESE, MEIJI PERIOD (LATE 19TH CENTURY), THE MOUNTS AND FITTINGS BY FERDINAND BARBEDIENNE, PARIS, CIRCA 1890
Each Japanese bamboo shaft finely decorated with gilt and black low and high-relief lacquer cartouches depicting temples and landscapes amongst gilt, coppered, and patinated-metal menuki of flora, fauna, and figures in various pursuits, surmounted with a French pierced lamp fitment mounted with a cherry blossom above a waisted neck, the body further mounted with two French rectangular handles cast with prunus branches, flanked by mythical beasts with biforcating tails, and with four standing dragons to the circular base raised on four tête d'éléphant feet, signed to the base 'F. BARBEDIENNE'
24 in. (61 cm.) high; 10 ½ in. (26.5 cm.) diameter

Specialist note


Menuki are traditional metal ornaments woven onto the hilt of a sword or knife, an artform which is considered its own unique profession within Japanese metalsmithing. Almost always obscured by the handle-wrapping for which they are intended, here the menuki are repurposed and placed on full display on the bamboo shafts as purely decorative objects intended for export. Very much continuing in the tradition of the eighteenth-century marchands merciers before them, the firm of Barbedienne further adapted these ‘Oriental’ objects at the height of the goût japonais with by adapting the bamboo shafts into lamps and raising them with Barbedienne’s characteristic tête d'éléphant feet.