A RUSSIAN ORMOLU-MOUNTED TULIPWOOD, AMARANTH AND MARQUETRY MECHANICAL WRITING TABLE

Similarly to lot 138 in this sale, the present table is a tour de force of Russian furniture making of the late 1700s. The high quality and precision of the exotic wood inlay suggest that this table, too, was executed by one of the leading cabinetmakers influenced by contemporaneous English craftsmen and active in Saint Petersburg in the late eighteenth century. Its mechanical workings made the present lot even more desirable at the time of its manufacture, when such innovative and curious features developed by furniture makers were highly prized and sought-after by a wealthy clientele.
The previous owners of this lot include two illustrious and highly important collectors of their times: Baron Edmond de Rothschild and Henry Ford II. Baron Edmond de Rothschild (1845-1934), the son of James and brother of Gustave and Alphonse, entered the Académie Française in 1905. A passionate connoisseur and philanthropist, in 1873 he bequeathed artefacts from the Milet excavation to the Louvre and subsequently, in 1895, added to this gift the Boscoreale treasures. Following his death, the Louvre again benefitted from his bequest of 6,000 drawings and 40,000 engravings and prints. The Baron's superlative collection was displayed at the châteaux d'Armainvilliers and de Boulogne and, in Paris, at his hôtel particulier located at 41 rue de Faubourg Saint Honoré. Henry Ford II (1917-1987) was a leading figure in the automotive industry who is credited with the transformation of the Ford Motor Company. His remarkable art collection, which was sold at public auction in 1990, contained works by Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse and Chagall, among others. Ford’s outstanding collection of French furniture, which he acquired with his first wife Anne McDonnell Ford, was largely formed with the advice of Rosenberg and Stiebel, New York. A large proportion of the French furniture and works of art they sold to Ford came directly from the Viennese Rothschilds, as well as Baronne Renée de Becker (née Rothschild).