Object Description
A Fine Louis XVI Style Gilt-Bronze Mounted Cabinet With a Vernis Martin Panel, In The Manner of Paul Sormani.
French, Circa 1870.
This elegant cabinet has a rectangular Seravezza marble top with canted corners above a conforming case with fine crossbanded veneers. The front is painted in vernis martin with a scene of Cupid brandishing his bow and holding a crown of roses, as an allegory of’ love conquers all’, and opening to an interior fitted with a shelf. The canted corners to the front enriched with fine gilt-bronze mounts of acanthus and torch en flambeau and the whole raised on toupie feet.
Born in Venice in 1817, Paul Sormani (1817-1877), was a Parisian maker of fine ‘meubles de luxe’. His work was described in the catalogue of the 1867 Exposition Universelle as: ‘toute sa production révèle une qualité d’exécution de tout premier ordre’ (all of his production reveals a quality of execution all of the first order’).
Sormani exhibited at the International Exhibitions in Paris in 1849, 1855, 1867, 1878 and 1900, and in London in 1862, winning numerous medals.
Paul Sormani established the firm in 1847 at 7 Cimetière Saint-Nicolas in Paris, moving in 1854 to 114 rue du Temple, and in 1867 to 10 rue Charlot.
After his death in 1877 Sormani’s son Paul-Charles took over the business that later moved to 134 Boulevard Haussmann.
It can be difficult to date Sormani’s work, as the firm produced furniture for nearly ninety years. However, when Paul Sormani died in 1877, his wife and son took over the business and from this date onwards pieces are normally signed ‘Veuve Sormani & Fils’.