ref. 1508/40

G. Viardot

Cabinet-maker
(1830-1906)
(attributed to)

Aesthetic Movement screen

France
Circa 1880

Palissander, Tinted Alder, Mother-of-Pearl, Ivory

Height : 110 cm (43,3 in.) ; Closed width : 70 cm (27,5 in.) ; Opened width : 139 cm (54,7 in.)

Rare Japanese style screen with three leaves in engraved and carved alder, with painted decoration and inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory representing butterflies and birds among flowering branches. The whole is topped with a sculpted dragon.

Biography

Gabriel Viardot career began as a wood carver and he produced small furniture, sculpturally carved with naturalistic motifs and animals. In the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris, his finely sculpted objects were well received. However, with the increasing importation of similarly produced Swiss and German articles, he found less opportunity for these and decided to innovate. G. Viardot succeeded to his father’s business in 1861 installed rue Rambuteau in Paris. Around 1870 he turned to the idea of producing « Meubles genre Chinois et Japonais ». The taste in Europe for exotic furniture, incorporating sometimes authentic Chinese or Japanese objects was well established. But Viardot early designed his own models enriched with ivory, mother-of-pearl and beautiful gilt-bronze mounts. After having won four medals at the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1867, Viardot was awarded a silver medal at the 1878 Universal Exhibition in Paris. He was also awarded gold medals several times : Universal Exhibitions in Anvers (Belgium) in 1884, and again in Paris in 1889 and 1900. A contemporary commentator notes that he had a workshop employing approximately 100 men, both sculptors and cabinet-makers with another 25 to 30 outside contract workers. « l’Escalier de Cristal », the famous Parisian offering luxurious furniture got the exclusivity to use their own stamp on six Viardot’s furniture models.

Works in connection

• Victoria and Albert Museum, London : A Japanese style walnut carved cabinet, 1888.

• Corning Museum of Glass, New York : Set of shelves, edited by « l’Escalier de Cristal » about 1895.

Bibliography

19th century European Furniture, Christopher Payne, Woodbridge 1989, p° 78.

Les ébénistes du XIXe siècle, Denise Ledoux-Lebard, Ed. de l’Amateur, 1984, p° 614.

Les créations de l’Escalier de Cristal, Philippe Thiébaut, Revue de l’Art, 1989, n° 85, p° 76.

Art and Design in Europe and America, 1800-1900, Victoria and Albert Museum, London 1987, p° 135.