Stamped "macret" - Elegant Chest Of Drawers In Violet Wood Veneer - Louis XV Period - 18th

Superb chest of drawers by a great cabinetmaker, with an eventful shape and in violet wood veneer.
The front is inlaid with "butterfly wings" and the sides with "ferns".
It opens with two drawers in two rows without visible crossbar, and rests on 4 arched feet.
The frame is in oak, as well as the parquet. The souls of the sides are made of softwood. The drawers are also in oak (resinous front but oak plywood to avoid deformation)
Beautiful ornamentation of chiseled bronzes gilded with fine mercury gold, gray marble top formerly restored.
Original locks with functional key.

Stamped twice on the front uprights "MACRET" for Pierre MACRET.
Its stamp is very characteristic because it is printed in very small letters.
Being "privileged cabinetmaker of the King", he was exempt from the control of the Jurande, which justifies the absence of the JME.

Louis XV period

This elegant chest of drawers is in excellent condition.
It is a very healthy piece of furniture that has been kept in good original condition. It was restored in "conservation" by our cabinetmaker without any concession of quality with a real varnish according to the recipes of the XVIIIth century.
H.: 83 cm - W.: 97 cm - D.: 53 cm.

Pierre MACRET (1727-1796) - Carpenter-cabinetmaker. Paris.
Born in 1727, he was "privileged cabinetmaker of King Louis XV".
We do not find any date of his master's degree but he received around 1756 a “royal craftsman's certificate following the court” title which probably exempted him from obtaining it by giving him the same advantages.
He set up his workshop on rue Saint-Nicolas and at the same time operated a furniture and decoration store on rue Saint-Honoré.
From 1765 to 1771, he was a cabinetmaker supplier to the Menus Plaisirs du Roy, from which he received a large number of orders for dressers every year. "From 1765 to 1771, he delivered to the royal family desks, chests of drawers, cupboards, quadrille tables (to play at four) in rosewood and violet wood, adorned with bronzes gilded with ground gold" (National Archives)

He also worked for the greatest collectors and the most important dealers of the time. He mainly produced Louis XV furniture, but few Louis XVI furniture having ceased his activity, fortune made, around 1785. His furniture, very neat, was covered with veneer, often in violet wood, mahogany and marquetry decorated with flowers, cubes or trophies.
After the sale of his studio, Macret lived in rue Moreau, behind the Quinze-Vingts hospice where we can find his traces until 1796.

MUSEUMS
Louis XVI inter-two furniture - Musée Nissim de Camondo (Paris) Commode transition with two doors in lacquered sheet - Chateau de Versailles

BIBLIOGRAPHY
The French Furniture of the XVIIIth Century - Pierre Kjellberg - Les Editions de l'Amateur - 2008 The cabinetmakers of the 18th century - Comte François de Salverte - The Editions of Art and History - 1934 The Art and the Manner of the French Master Cabinetmakers in the 18th century - Jean Nicolay - Pygmalion - 1976