This is a beautiful antique French bois de Violette, ormolu and Sevres porcelain mounted dressing table circa 1860 in date.
It has been masterfully crafted from beautiful Bois de Violette highlighted with decorative ormolu banding and ormolu mounted Sevres porcelain plaques that have been hand painted with exotic birds.
The dressing table features a shaped mirror with a pair of petite drawers to the top and a single drawer to the frieze and it is raised on four elegant cabriole legs.
Add a elegant touch to your home with this exceptional piece of antique French furniture.
Condition:
In excellent condition having been beautifully cleaned, polished and waxed in our workshops, please see photos for confirmation.
Dimensions in cm:
Height 147 x Width 78 x Depth 54
Dimensions in inches:
Height 4 foot, 10 inches x Width 2 foot, 7 inches x Depth 1 foot, 9 inches
Bois de Violette
is a classic furniture wood, almost exclus
...ively used for inlays on very fine furniture. Occasionally it is used in the solid for small items and turned work, including parts of billiard cues, e.g., those made by John Parris. It is brownish-purple with many fine darker stripes and occasional irregular swirls. Occasionally it contains pale streaks of a similar colour to sapwood.
The wood is very dense and hard and can be brought to a spectacular finish. it turns well but due to its density and hardness can be difficult to work with hand tools. It also has a tendency to blunt the tools due to its abrasive properties.
Sevres Porcelain
traces its roots in France to early craftsmen who had small manufacturing operations in such places as Lille, Rouen. St. Cloud, and most notably Chantilly. It is from Chantilly that a cadre of workers migrated to the Chateau de Vincennes near Paris to form a larger porcelain manufactory in 1738.
French King Louis XV, perhaps inspired by his rumoured relationship with mistress Madame de Pompadour, took an intense interest in porcelain and moved the operation in 1756 to even larger quarters in the Paris suburb of Sevres. Sevres was also conveniently near the home of Madame de Pompadour and the King''s own Palace at Versailles.
From the outset the king''s clear aim was to produce Sevres Porcelain that surpassed the established Saxony works of Meissen and Dresden. Though the French lacked an ample supply of kaolin, a required ingredient for hard-paste porcelain (pate dure), their soft-paste porcelain (pate tendre) was fired at a lower temperature and was thus compatible with a wider variety of colours and glazes that in many cases were also richer and more vivid. Unglazed white Sevres Porcelain ''biscuit'' figurines were also a great success. However, soft-paste Sevres Porcelain was more easily broken. Therefore, early pieces of Sevres Porcelain that remain intact have become rare indeed.
The Sevres Porcelain manufactory always seemed to be in dire financial straits despite the incredibly fine works it produced. In fact, the king''s insistence that only the finest items be created may have contributed to the difficulties. Only a limited number of European nobility could afford the extravagant prices demanded for such works. King Louis XV and eventually his heir, the ill-fated Louis XVI, were obliged to invest heavily in the enterprise. Ultimately, the Sevres Porcelain Factory produced items under the name of ''Royal'' and thus the well-known Sevres mark was born. King Louis XV even mandated laws that severely restricted other porcelain production in France so as to retain a near monopoly for his Sevres Porcelain. The king even willingly became chief salesman for the finest of his products, hosting an annual New Year''s Day showing for French nobility in his private quarters at Versailles. He eagerly circulated among potential buyers, pitching the merits of ownership and policing the occas
Internal Reference: A3453
Antique ID Number (AIDN): SA1011031
Dateline of this antique is 1860
Height is 147cm (57.9inches)Width is 78cm (30.7inches)Depth is 54cm (21.3inches)
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