FRENCH CABINETS 21
- Cabinet
Paris, 1788
By Guillaume Benneman; gilt-bronze
mounts cast by Forestier (either Etienne-
Jean or his brother Pierre-Auguste) and
Badin from models by Gilles-Fransois
Martin, chased by Pierre-Philippe Thomire
and gilded by André Galle; marble top
supplied by Lanfant
Oak veneered with ebony, mahogany, and
lacquer, set with pietre dure plaques of
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century date;
gilt-bronze mounts; bleu turquin marble top
Stamped G.BENEMAN twice on top of the
carcass and stenciled with a partial mark,
possibly for the Chateau de Saint-Cloud,
on back.
Height: 3 ft. % in. (92.2 cm); Width:
5 ft. 5/8 in. (165.4 cm); Depth: 2 ft. iY 4 in.
(64.1 cm)
Accession number 78 .DA.361
PROVENANCE
Louis XVI, one of a pair costing 5,954 livres
in the Chambre ä coucher du Rot, Chateau
de Saint-Cloud, from October 4,1788,
until at least an II (1793-1794); Earls of
Powis, Powis Castle, Wales, by 1848 (sold,
Sotheby's, London, May 11,1962, lot 262,
for £33,000); John Allnat (sold, Sotheby's,
London, June 21,1974, lot 109, to Didier
Aaron, Paris); [Aveline et Cie, Paris and
Geneva].
EXHIBITIONS
London, The Victoria and Albert Museum,
on loan, 1969-1974.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
"Powis Castle, Montgomeryshire, the Seat of
the Earl of Powis," Country Life 23 (May 9,
1908), illus. p. 670; Jean Meuvret and
Claude Frégnac, Les Ebénistes du XVIIIe
siecle frangais (Paris, 1963), pp. 306-307,
illus.; Anthony Coleridge, "Clues to the
Provenance of an Outstanding French
Commode," Connoisseur162 (July 1966),
pp. 164-166, illus.; Wilson, "Acquisitions
1977 to mid 1979," no. 11, pp. 46-49, illus.;
Gillian Wilson, "A Pair of Cabinets for
Louis XVTs Bedroom at Saint-Cloud:
Their Present Appearance," Journal of the
Furniture History Society τι (1985), pp. 4-47;
Verlet, Les Bronzes, p. 213, illus. p. 46,
fig. 39; Pradére, Les Ebénistes, illus. p. 406,
fig. 502; Pierre Verlet, Le Mobilier royal
frangais, vol. 4, Meubles de la couronne
conserves en Europe et aux Etats-Unis (Paris,
1990), pp. 116-121, illus.; Handbook 1991,
p. 197, illus. p. 196; Ulrich Leben, Molitor:
Ebéniste from the Ancien Regime to the
Bourbon Restoration (London, 1992), p. 150,
%· 153.
ι6
