A Finely Carved Louis XIV/Regence Style Giltwood Centre Table with A Rare Patricia Green Italian Marble Top, After the Model by Jules Degoullons.
This impressive centre table is after the celebrated giltwood table a gibier or double-sided console table made circa 1713 for the Château de Bercy by Jules Degoullons (ca. 1671–1737) now in the Louvre, Paris (Louvre Accession No. OA 5049).
French, Circa 1890.
The Château de Bercy, east of Paris, was built by François Le Vau for Charles-Henri I de Malon de Bercy in 1658. His son Charles-Henri II de Malon de Bercy (1678-1742), after marrying the daughter of the Contrôleur Général des Finances, became superintendant des Finances, which enabled him to commission sculptors from the Société pour les Bâtiments du Roi, to modernize the château’s furnishings in 1713-14. Among the most important sculptors and designers to work on the Chateau were Jules Degoullons, André and Matthieu Legoupil, Marin Bellan, and Pierre Taupin who were instrumental in the development of the Regence style.
Due to the expansion of Paris in the 19th century, the château was pulled down in 1860 and its contents auctioned over four days. Degoullons console was purchased on behalf of Napoléon III, and transferred to the Louvre, assigned from the Mobilier national in 1901.
Maison Krieger exhibited a copy at the Salon des industries du mobilier in 1902. It appears in an old black and white photo taken from la revue, “Les Arts”, October 1902.
The design for the Château de Bercy table proved popular throughout the late nineteenth century, and following its admission to the Louvre examples were made by some of the most important makers of the day including Fourdinois, Krieger and François Linke who supplied a model to the Grosvenor Square home of Elias Meyer in 1910.
The present example is illustrated by Christopher Payne in Paris Furniture: The Luxury Market of the 19th Century, Editions Monelle Hayot (Saint-Remy-en-l’Eau), 2018; p. 135.
De Ricci, Seymour. Louis XIV et Régence, (Paris), 1929; p. 72.
Pallot, B. G. B. Le mobilier du Louvre, t.2, (Paris), 1993; pp. 36-39.
Payne, Christopher. François Linke, 1855 – 1946, The Belle Époque of French Furniture, Antique Collectors’ Club, (Woodbridge, UK), 2005; p. 160-161, pl 171-2; p. 244-245, pl. 259,260.
Payne, Christopher. Paris Furniture: The Luxury Market of the 19th Century, Editions Monelle Hayot (Saint-Remy-en-l’Eau), 2018; p. 135.
By appointment only.
