Rare Dresser Said In Sarcophagus

Rare chest of drawers known as a sarcophagus opening with three drawers in three rows resting on four small arched feet. The chest of drawers is veneered with violet wood in grain and end wood, applied in crimping and in sheet. On the front, this marquetry is in the form of braces. It is adorned with an ornamentation of gilded bronzes and chiseled in falls decorated with a feathered woman's mask, in keyholes, in drooping handles with cornucopias, in rear legs in acanthus foliage, in carved apron of 'acanthus and very finely chiseled hooves on the front. The drawers are separated by a brass groove. The original marble top is a Belgian rancid molded around its edge with a corbin's beak and surmounted by a cavet. The frame and the fronts of the drawers are in fir and the interiors of the drawers in walnut. Regency Period Usual restorations, a gilded bronze drop H. 90 x W. 128 x D. 67 cm The chest of drawers that we present today is called a "sarcophagus chest of drawers". It is a type of chest of drawers that was produced in small quantities at the beginning of the 18th century, and therefore shortly after the birth of this said piece of furniture. Indeed, its form is inherited from the office and made its first steps under the reign of Louis XIV. The chest of drawers is then fixed to the Regency, then it becomes the furniture of this century in the same way as the cabinet in the 17th century. There is then the so-called tomb commode which is widely distributed in the first third of the eighteenth century. The sarcophagus dresser is its ancestor and is much less common as we had already mentioned. Therefore, the chest of drawers that we present is particularly interesting for all collectors of chest of drawers or Régence furniture. Inspired by antique sarcophagi, it has concave and then convex drawers on the front. On the other hand, its marquetry is very appreciable. The cross pattern is particularly well done. In purple wood or violet wood with which it is veneered is the Dalbergia Cearensis which comes from Brazil. To evoke its author, we must study the few convenient sarcophagus that we know, and among these, those which are identified by documents or stamps (not compulsory at that time). Thus, this chest of drawers belongs to a set of furniture probably by the same author. Calin Demetrescu ruled out a realization by Aubertin or Renaud Gaudron and hypothesized a realization by Noël Gérard or by his entourage. The small body of furniture that we can assemble has in common the structure of the body, its original cut, and the fairly recurring bronze ornamentation. Thus, a chest of drawers presented by the Wagner gallery in 1978 at the Biennale took up the composition of our chest of drawers and a good part of the ornamental bronzes (entrances, drop handles). An almost identical chest of drawers was sold by Masters Couturier and Nicolay on March 29, 2000 in Paris. Equal in size to our chest of drawers, presenting the same bronzes as the Wagner chest of drawers, this piece of furniture is stamped by Louis Delaître, who must be the author of the selected corpus. Sources: Demetrescu (Calin), The Regency style, The editions of the Amateur Verlet (Pierre), The French furniture of the eighteenth century, Puf