An important French lacquer panel with chinoiserie decor - image-1
An important French lacquer panel with chinoiserie decor - image-2
An important French lacquer panel with chinoiserie decor - image-3
An important French lacquer panel with chinoiserie decor - image-4
An important French lacquer panel with chinoiserie decor - image-5
An important French lacquer panel with chinoiserie decor - image-1An important French lacquer panel with chinoiserie decor - image-2An important French lacquer panel with chinoiserie decor - image-3An important French lacquer panel with chinoiserie decor - image-4An important French lacquer panel with chinoiserie decor - image-5

Lot 1141 Dα

An important French lacquer panel with chinoiserie decor

Auction 1117 - overview Cologne
16.11.2018, 16:30 - Selected Works of Art
Estimate: 40.000 € - 50.000 €

An important French lacquer panel with chinoiserie decor

Coloured lacquer, mother-of-pearl inlays, and gilt metal foil on black ground on a walnut panel backed with canvas in a moulded gilt beech foliage frame (possibly original). With a stencilled inventory no. 73 to a paper glued to the back, beneath this an inscribed label "Panneau Femme dans un Balanquin" , and a further label "Emballeur Pape 5, Rue de la Terrasse, Paris". Restored. H 65.2, W 54.3 cm, H with frame 76, W 66 cm.
France, attributed to the Martin workshop, mid- to 3rd quarter 18th C.

This chinoiserie motif is reminiscent of similar compositions by François Boucher or Jean-Baptiste Pillement. Far eastern influences are combined and placed in a fanciful setting of European invention. Whilst Pillement and Boucher's scenes usually take place within idealized naturalistic backgrounds or upon stylised landscape platforms, this scene seems to have been chosen for its suitability for the lacquer technique. The figures and architecture of the foreground appear to glow against a midnight black background. The light source is not defined and must lie outside of and in front of the composition, lending it a theatrical appearance. Four Oriental men are shown carrying a sumptuously dressed lady with distinctly European features on a litter. Three men kneel before her, one with daggers in his belt, in a deep kowtow. An obelisk on a broad pedestal serves as repoussoir on the right edge and an urn on a treestump on the left, whilst a spruce tree, almost entirely obscured by the inky darkness, finishes off the scene on the left.

The panel evidently originates from one of the great workshops in Paris working for the French court. The quality of the depiction, especially the painting and the costly materials used, goes above and beyond that achieved in any normal lacquer workshop. Lacquer panels as large as this one have not survived in 18th century furniture, so it is thinkable that this piece was produced as a boiserie or even as a framed painting.

Around the year 1728, the Martin brothers in Paris developed a type of imitation lacquer based on copal to compete with the works imported from China and Japan. It came to be known as “vernis martin”. They worked on the same layering principle used in far eastern lacquer products, but French lacquer differs greatly in its components. They were able to achieve a greater tonal range, and the background colours moved away from the traditional deep black towards paler or more vivid colours which accentuated the depiction more efficiently.

We know of small rooms in Versailles behind the great royal apartments such as those used by Marie-Antoinette and her ladies in waiting. Maria Josepha of Saxony (1731 - 1767) had a boiserie by the Martin workshop installed in one of these rooms in the 1750s which still exists in comparatively good condition today. Although the Martins' was not the only workshop producing these kinds of works, it was certainly the most important, and the name became synonymous with European lacquer as a whole.

Provenance

French private collection, sold by Sotheby´s London, 6th July 2016, lot 29.

Literature

For more information on the Martin workshop in Paris cf. cat.: Vernis Martin. Französischer Lack im 18. Jahrhundert, Munich-Münster 2013, especially the essays by Anne Foray-Carlier.