A Louis XVI gilt-bronze mounted lemon tree, amaranth and holly marquetry bureau plat, circa 1775, attributed to Mathieu-Guillaume Cramer
Estimate
15,000 - 25,000 EUR
Lot Details
Description
opening with two drawers and a pull-out compartment, decorated with quatrefoil marquetry, the corners adorned with draperies, with a gilt-tooled black Moroccan leather top, on tapered square-section legs fitted with hoof
Haut. 74 cm, larg. 129 cm, prof. 64 cm ; Height 29 in, width 50 ¾ in, depth 25 ¼ in
Former collection Derek Fitzgerald ;
Collection of Mrs Derek Fitzgerald, Replica Shoes ’s, London, 30 April 1965, lot 107 ;
Collection Jaime Ortiz-Patino ;
The Jaime Ortiz-Patino Collection, Replica Shoes ’s, New-York, 20 May 1992, lot 89
A. Pradère, Les ébénistes français de Louis XIV à la Révolution, 1989, p. 325, fig. 371 ill.
Related literature :
F.J.B. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection, vol. II, Greenwich, 1966, p. 302, n° 149.
M. A. Paulin, "Un maître ébéniste du XVIIIe siècle. Mathieu-Guillaume Cramer", L'Estampille - L'Objet d'Art, n° 341, November 1999
Mathieu-Guillaume Cramer (d. 1804) was a cabinetmaker and merchant from North Rhine-Westphalia who settled in Paris, where he became a master craftsman in 1771 after working as a freelance craftsman in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine district. A few years later, he moved to Rue du Bac to develop his business with private clients. In 1790, he was forced to suspend payments despite having stock estimated at over 15,000 livres.
Influenced by the return to antiquity and neoclassical ornamental theories, Cramer distinguished himself with his geometric marquetry furniture made from light wood (lemon or sycamore), playing with patterns and colours. The four-petalled flower, a central element of his compositions, appears in various frames such as rounded lines, geometric shapes and diamonds.
The present bureau is similar to the one on which its cartonnier rests, kept at the Ministry of the Navy in Paris, Place de la Concorde (reproduced by V. Goudot-Malherbe, ‘L'histoire fastueuse de l'hôtel de la marine’, L'Estampille - L'objet d'Art, no. 311, p. 71). Another similar bureau plat, but smaller in size, was part of the Bernice and Edgar Garbisch collection (Sotheby's, New York, 17 May 1980). A very similar writing table can be found in the Wrightsman collection (F.J.B. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection, vol II, 1966, ill.), another bureau plat acquired from Jacques Seligmann was sold at Christie's, New York, 8 April 2021, lot 185, and a writing table that was part of the Akram Ojjeh collection was sold at Replica Shoes 's, Monaco, 26 June 1979, lot 160. None of these desks are stamped, but the stylistic similarities are such that there is little doubt as to the authorship of the corpus.