Designers and Art object Editors
(active from 1799 to 1885)
(attributed to)

Wall-mounted Letter Rack

France
Circa 1860

Bronze, Glass, Mirror

Height : 48 cm (18,9 in.) ; Width : 35 cm (13,7 in.) ; Depth : 13,5 cm (5,3 in.)

Charming Japanese-inspired wall-mounted letter rack in chiseled and gilded bronze with geometric uprights imitating bamboo. The letter compartment is made up of three glass panes engraved with floral motifs, and a mirror at the bottom.

Biography

Alphonse Giroux and Company, famous curiosity and luxury goods shop was situated in Paris, at No. 7 rue du Coq-Saint-Honoré and in business from the time of the Consulate until the end of the Second Empire. The company was founded by Francois-Simon-Alphonse and continued in 1838 by his two sons, Alphonse-Gustave (1810-1886) and André (1801-1879). The father became a close associate of the royal family and specialized in the manufacture of refined items for gifts. Kings Louis XVIII and then Charles X were both supplied with gifts for « The Children of France » by Giroux. Making progressively small furniture, they were mentioned for the first time in 1837 in the class « cabinet-makers » in the Paris Almanach. It was Alphonse-Gustave, however, who really expanded the activities of the firm as is testified by the report of the jury at the 1839 Products of Industry Exhibition awarding him another silver medal. Alphonse was also quick to participate in the famous and soon figured among the best in the luxury goods business. After buying a writing desk at the 1855 Universal Exhibition Napoleon IIIrd bought several other pieces of furniture, candelabras and clocks from Giroux for the Compiègne Palace. In 1857 Alphonse Giroux transferred his shop to No. 43, boulevard des Capucines where he continued to do business until 1867, when he ceded the company to Duvinage and Harinkouck.

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Sculptor-Ornemanist
(1821-1888)

 (Attributed to)

F. Barbedienne

Bronze-Caster
(1810-1892)

Byzantine Sweet box

France
Circa 1880

Signed F. Barbedienne

Gilt bronze, polychrome cloisonné enamel

Height : 14,5 cm (5,7 in) ; Sides : 16 x 16 cm (6,3 in)

Precious sweet box in gilt bronze with polychrome cloisonné enamel decoration. It rest son four foliage claw feet with lion heads and is adorned with polychrome cloisonné enamel Byzantine decoration

The high quality of the enamel is typical of Barbedienne’s production. It enhances this pair of covered cups especially with the wide range of colours used to create the decoration. The enamel is smooth and shiny and shows many shades to form the Byzantine decoration. The partitioned cloisonné is finely engraved and contributes to the decoration by adopting vegetal and foliage shapes.

The model

This sweet box is from a well-known model of the Barbedienne Company. Indeed a similar covered-cup was purchased in 1867 – certainly during the Paris Universal Exhibition – by the Österreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst of Vienna (Inv. –NrEm15/1867). Some years after, during the 1873 Vienna Universal Exhibition, Ferdinand Barbedienne presented on his stand an identical cup reproduced in Kunst und Kunstgewerbe auf der Wiener Weltausstellung, 1873. It shows the same foliage feet and the same enamel decoration with flowered scrolls and Byzantine motifs.

Covered cup of the 1873 Universal Exhibition,

(reproduced in Kunst und Kunstgewerbe auf der Wiener Weltausstellung, p. 441)

Barbedienne and the cloisonné enamel

Ferdinand Barbedienne continously innovated and he revived the use of enamel on art works during the second half of the 19th century. The Sèvres Manufacture enamel workshop had ever tried it in 1854-1855, but Barbedienne was the one who succeeded to join enamel to an industrial decorative objects production. From 1858 “At Mr Barbedienne’s, enamels in copper ornaments have got their former prestige back” (Les bronzes de la Maison Barbedienne, C. Simon, in L’Art du XIXe siècle, 1858, n°21, p. 252). The Barbedienne Company had now an enamel workshop where objects ornamented with oriental style or medieval style enamels were made. Four years after, Barbedienne’s cloisonné opaque enamels are noticed during the 1862 Universal Exhibition. Barbedienne was awarded three medals in three different categories : ‘Furniture’, ‘Silversmith work’ and ‘Artistic bronzes’ especially for the combination of bronze with enamel (oriental style cup, Compiègne Castle, Inv. C. 71-122).

The technique used to make these covered cups is different from the traditional one used for cloisonné enamel. In fact in Barbedienne’s productions the cloisonné is not welded to the object but is directly cast with it. The cloisonné forms part of the object and this innovation enabled to have a more refined and softer decoration.

The colours used by the Barbedienne Company also relate to the success of its enamels and the shades are praised as they “have more than the others these qualities of sparkle and richness that the range of colours of Gothic and Chinese enamellers also have” (in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1^er décembre 1862, p. 542). This was made to create original enamelled creations either with Chinese or Japanese inspiration with a naturalistic decoration, or with Persian or Indian inspiration with a more stylized decoration, like on these covered cups.

Biographies

Louis-Constant Sévin (1821-1888) : he was first trained to design and sculpture with the sculptor Antoine-André Marneuf (1796-1865). In 1839 he went into partnership with two sculptors, Phénix and Joyau, and he created designs for famous goldsmiths such as Denière, Froment-Meurice and Morel. He fled to London during the 1848 Revolution where he worked at Morel, with whom he exhibited art works at the 1851 Universal Exhibition. Back to France he took p

art to the 1855 Universal Exhibition by creating designs to the Limoges porcelain makers Jouhanneaud and Dubois. Since then he worked as head decorator at Ferdinand Barbedienne’s Company. He produced a lot of works : he designed the bronze decoration for the Paiva’s Hotel (on the Champs-Elysées avenue) and created models for Ferdinand Barbedienne. He participated in different exhibitions and was awarded at the 1862 London Universal Exhibition for the artistical excellence of the furniture items he designed and which are exhibited by Barbedienne. He also received a Gold Medal as collaborator at the 1863 Central Union of Decorative Arts Exhibition.

Ferdinand Barbedienne (1810-1892) : he created and headed at n°30 boulevard Poissonnière in Paris one of the most famous 19^th century artistic bronze casting companies. Awarded with two Council Medals at the 1851 London Universal Exhibition, the Barbedienne company won at the 1855 Paris Universal Exhibition a medal of honour and eleven cooperator’s medals for the work of his co-workers, such as his designer Louis-Constant Sévin (1821-1888) and his chaser Désiré Attarge (c.1820-1878). At the London Universal Exhibition of 1862 Barbedienne won medals in three different categories : ‘Furniture’, ‘Silversmith work’ and ‘Artistic bronzes’, combining for some pieces with onyx marble and enamel. Barbedienne was not only, with the Parisian silversmith Christofle, one of the leaders of the French Aesthetic Movement in decorative arts, but also the first artist to produce the famous cloisonné enamels (see « L’émaillerie moderne », Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Alfred Darcel, t. XXIV, janv.-juin 1868, p° 75-84). At the 1867 Universal Exhibition in his capacity as member of and speaker for the Jury, he was non-contestant, but exhibited nevertheless with great success cloisonné and champlevé enamelled pieces. Barbedienne was made an Officer of the Légion d’Honneur in 1867 and Commander in 1878 when he was compared with “a prince of industry and the king of bronze casting”. His glory did not decline with the passage of the time for at the Universal Exhibition of 1889 the critics thanked Barbedienne for the example he set for other bronze-casters by the perfection of his bronzes.

Bibliography

– L’Art en France sous le Second Empire, Exposition Grand-Palais, Paris, 1979, p. 148-149.

– L’émaillerie moderne, Alfred Darcel, in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, t. XXIV (janvier-juin1868), p. 76.

– Les bronzes de la Maison Barbedienne, C. Simon, in L’Art du XIXe siècle, 1858, n°21, p. 252.

– Der Traum von Glück : Die Kunst des Historismus in Europa, Ausstellung im Künstlerhaus und der Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Wien, 1996-1997, p. 599-600.

– Kunst und Kunstgewerbe auf der Wiener Weltausstellung, 1873, Von Lützow, Leipzig, 1875, p. 441.

– Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1^er décembre 1862, p. 542.

Museology

– Covered cup probably exhibited at the 1867 Universal Exhibition, preserved at the Osterreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna (Inv. –NrEm 15/1867).

– Covered cup, preserved at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (Inv. 1999.49.3.A-B).

– Covered cup so-called sweet-box, preserved at the Musée de l’Evêché – Musée de l’Email, Limoges (Inv. 2006.15.1).

Covered cup so-called sweet-box

Musée de l’Evêché – Musée de l’Email, Limoges.

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Cabinet- & fine boxes maker
(1813-1892)

Remarkable travel casket

Signed Tahan, Fr du Roi, à Paris

France
Circa 1860

Height : 25,5 cm (10 in.) ; Width : 66 cm (26 in.) ; Depth : 44 cm (17,3 in.)

Remarkable travel casket also known as « paper-holder » made in blackened wood, finely decorated with brass, red tortoiseshell and mother-of-pearl marquetry and fine chiseled and gilded bronze ornaments. The top opening onto a satinwood veneered inside and three drawers, with a monogramed flap and a further large flap to the frontside.

Biography

Jean-Pierre-Alexandre Tahan took over his father business, already specialized in jewel caskets and liquor cellarettes as well as in luxurious small furniture registered under the « tabletterie » category. Thanks to him, the Tahan company knew much success and became one of the most famous firms in Paris. They settled rue de la Paix, then boulevard des Italiens, both fancy Parisian addresses under the Second Empire. Tahan became also very quickly one of the favorite providers of Emperor Napoléon III and Empress Eugénie. He delivered to the imperial palaces numerous tables, vitrines, cellarettes and further fine decorative objects. In other words, he was definitively the great specialist of precious and highly selected objects. The Tahan house participated in various Universal Exhibitions, where they were steadily awarded medals : a silver medal in 1849, another one in London in 1852 and the gold medal in Paris in 1867.

Bibliography

Les ébénistes du XIXe siècle, D. Ledoux-Lebard, Ed. de l’amateur, 1984, p.593.

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Ornemanist
(active between 1867 and 1873)

E. Frémiet

Sculptor
(1824-1910)

C.-G. Diehl

Cabinet-maker
(1811-1885)
(attributed to)

A neo-Greek cigar cellarette

France
Circa 1867

Height : 124 cm (48,8 in.) ; Width : 55 (21,6 in.) ; Depth : 42 cm (16,5 in.)

Rare humidor made in cedar, with a front flap, discovering five sliding cane trays. Beautiful bronze and silver electroplated brass ornaments, such as the central niche decorated with a winged creature, surmounted on top of the cabinet with a feline. Resting on four tall legs joined by a stretcher decorated with a silvered pierced bronze incense burner.

The central relief of that cellarette for cigars, with that fantasy creature, is directly inspired from the one designed by J. Brandely for the front door of the Merovingian Cabinet made by Diehl in 1867, and now preserved at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Inv. 1989.197).

Biography

Arriving in Paris in about 1840 Charles-Guillaume Diehl (1811-1885) founded his cabinet making and decoration firm at 19 rue Michel-le-Comte in 1885. His workshops produced elegant little pieces of furniture in rosewood and thuja and novelties with bronze and porcelain embellishments (see « Les ébénistes du XIXème siècle »,D. Ledoux-Lebard, Ed. de l’amateur, 1982, p.164). It was his luxury boxes, however (liqueur cellarettes, cigar cabinets, games boxes, cashmere cases, jewelry cases) which assured Diehl’s renown (see « l’Art en France sous le Second Empire », Exposition Grand-Palais, Paris, 1979, p.133). Already rewarded with a bronze medal at the Universal Exhibition of 1855 in Paris, he exhibited a jardinière with china columns and a liqueur cabinet at the Industrial Arts Exhibition in 1861.

In collaboration with the designer Jean Brandely (active between 1867 and 1873), Diehl renovated his decorative repertory and created astonishing pieces of furniture in the Grecian style which had a dazzling success at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1867, where his cabinets also won a silver medal. Certain motifs were so typical of Diehl’s work that they received extensive commentary by the art critic J. Mesnard in his book « Les Merveilles de l’Exposition Universal de 1867 » (vol. II, pp. 133 & 149). He writes of a table of which « the pendant bearing hooks and the fan shaped radiating motif which ornaments the entablature are engraved with love » (p. 133) and a jewelry case where « The head in fine Grecian style makes up the essential part of the fine gilt bronze ornementation » (p. 149).

For this Universal Exhibition of 1867, Diehl also formed a partnership with two famous sculptors : Emile Guillemin (1841-1907) who carved the relief for a mahogany sideboard with galvanic gilt bronzes (Orsay Museum, Paris, Inv. O.A.O. 992) and Emmanuel Frémiet (1824-1910) who executed the low relief for a cedar medal cabinet with marquetry and silver plated bronzes (Orsay Museum, Paris, Inv. O.A. 10440). Diehl was again rewarded with a medal of honor at the Union Central Exhibition of 1869 and a progress medal at the Universal Exhibition in Vienna in 1873 (Sideboard in blackened pear wood and lemon wood with galvanic bronzes, designed by J. Brandely with a low relief by E. Guillemin, Orsay Museum, Paris, Inv. O.A.O. 336). Showered with praise by the critics, Diehl is considered as one of the most innovating artists of the 19th Century. His final appearance was at the 1878 Universal Exhibition in Paris where he presented outside the competition, his most recent creations, including a work table in marquetry which with its naturalistic grasshopper motif anticipated « Art Nouveau » (Musée de l’Ecole de Nancy, Nancy).

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Ornemanist
(active from 1867 until 1873)

C.G. Diehl

Cabinet-maker
(1811-1885)

E. Frémiet

Sculptor
(1824-1910)

A neo-Greek inkwell

Signed Diehl à Paris

France
Circa 1867

Height : 45 cm (17,7 in.) ; Width : 50 cm (19,6 in.) ; Depth : 23 cm (9 in.)

Ebony and silvered copper neo-Greek inkwell. Central drawer ornamented with an escutcheon and flanked by two small lateral drawers forming two containers, surmounted by a lid representing a nestling. Central niche ornamented with a winged creature. The inkwell is flanked by two felines, and toped by a penholder representing a Moorish head resting on an eagle claw.

This exceptional neo-Greek inkwell was realized thanks to the collaboration of ornemanist J. Brandely, sculptor E. Frémiet and cabinet-maker C.-G. Diehl. The motif of the fantasy creature dear to Diehl, is to be seen on the famous cabinet made by him in 1867 and now exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Inv. 1989.197).

Biography

Arriving in Paris in about 1840, Charles-Guillaume Diehl (1811-1885) founded his cabinet making and decoration firm at 19 rue Michel-le-Comte in 1885. His workshops produced elegant little pieces of furniture in rosewood and thuja and novelties with bronze and porcelain embellishments (see « Les ébénistes du XIXème siècle »,D. Ledoux-Lebard, Ed. de l’amateur, 1982, p.164). It was his luxury boxes, however (liqueur cellarettes, cigar cabinets, games boxes, cashmere cases, jewelry cases) which assured Diehl’s renown (see « l’Art en France sous le Second Empire », Exposition Grand-Palais, Paris, 1979, p.133). Already rewarded with a bronze medal at the Universal Exhibition of 1855 in Paris, he exhibited a jardinière with china columns and a liqueur cabinet at the Industrial Arts Exhibition in 1861.

In collaboration with the designer Jean Brandely (active from 1867 until 1873), Diehl renovated his decorative repertory and created astonishing pieces of furniture in the Grecian style which had a dazzling success at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1867, where his cabinets also won a silver medal. Certain motifs were so typical of Diehl’s work that they received extensive commentary by the art critic J. Mesnard in his book « Les Merveilles de l’Exposition Universal de 1867 » (vol. II, pp. 133 & 149). He writes of a table of which « the pendant bearing hooks and the fan shaped radiating motif which ornaments the entablature are engraved with love » (p. 133) and a jewelry case where « The head in fine Grecian style makes up the essential part of the fine gilt bronze ornementation » (p. 149).

For this Universal Exhibition Diehl also formed a partnership with two famous sculptors : Emile Guillemin (1841-1907) who carved the relief for a mahogany sideboard with galvanic gilt bronzes (Orsay Museum, Paris, Inv. O.A.O. 992) and Emmanuel Frémiet (1824-1910) who executed the low relief for a cedar medal cabinet with marquetry and silver plated bronzes (Orsay Museum, Paris, Inv. O.A. 10440). Diehl was again rewarded with a medal of honour at the Union Central Exhibition of 1869 and a progress medal at the Universal Exhibition in Vienna in 1873 (Sideboard in blackened pear wood and lemon wood with galvanic bronzes, designed by J. Brandely with a low relief by E. Guillemin, Orsay Museum, Paris, Inv. O.A.O. 336). Showered with praise by the critics, Diehl is considered as one of the most innovating artists of the 19th Century. His final appearance was at the 1878 Universal Exhibition in Paris where he presented outside the competition, his most recent creations, including a work table in marquetry which with its naturalistic grasshopper motif anticipated « Art Nouveau » (Musée de l’Ecole de Nancy, Nancy).

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