A Pair of French Gilt-Bronze Mounted and Ebonised Meubles d'Appui

Object Description

A pair of French gilt-bronze mounted and ebonised meubles d’appui, by Mathieu Béfort dit Béfort Jeune.

Each has a vert maurin marble top above a cupboard door applied with large oval gilt-bronze medallions depicting Hercules and Orpheus, opening to an interior fitted with an adjustable shelf, each twice stamped ‘BEFORT JEUNE’, and mounts marked ‘BJ’

French, Circa 1850.

The two gilt-bronze oval medallions represent Orpheus in Hades and Hercules Chaining Cerberus and are after a design attributed to Augustin Pajou (1730–1809), the pair of are a type recorded to decorate a single cabinet at the Hôtel de Voyer d’Argenson as drawn by Sir William Chambers in 1769.

Object History

The firm of Befort specialised in “furniture in the style of Boulle and in the use of bronze and hardstone” (Ledoux-Lebard, Denise. Le mobilier français du XIXe siècle, (Paris), 1965; p. 29) and received a medal at the 1844 Exposition des produits de l’industrie française. Befort Jeune was recorded at Neuves-Saint-Gilles from 1844 until 1880.

Object Literature

Ledoux – Lebard, Denise. Les Ébénistes du XIXe siècle, Les Editions de L’Amateur, (Paris), 1984; pp. 48-50.
J. Draper, G. Scherf, Pajou sculpteur du Roi 1730-1809, cat. exp., Paris & New York, 1998, p. 164-165, fig. 100.
J. Harris, ‘Sir Williams Chambers and his Parisian Album’, dans Architectural History. The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, t. 6, 1963, pp. 54-90, p. 60, fig. 7

Object Details