A LOUIS XV ORMOLU-MOUNTED TULIPWOOD AND AMARANTH INKSTAND WITH SEVRES AND MENNECY PORCELAIN

The application of the rose marbré ground was a complicated procedure, involving the application of a blue ground over a fired pink ground and the scraping away of the blue to reveal the pink below in a desired marbled pattern, (Aileen Dawson, French Porcelain, A Catalogue of the Collection of the British Museum, London, 1994, p. 115, no. 103, color plate 16).

André Meyer (1898-1979) was a self-made financier, whose astounding success led to his sobriquet as "the Picasso of Banking." He was a partner of Lazard Frres and became head of their American operations after the Second World War, where he was responsible for making Lazard the top mergers and acquisitions firm in post war America. Meyer was an avid collector, and his interests encompassed Impressionist paintings by Picasso, Cezanne and Monet as well as important French furniture and musical scores. He donated a Cezanne to the Museum of Modern Art and left his collection of nineteenth century paintings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.