Exquisite Quality Pair of Louis XV Style Ormolu Mounted Credenza by Fontainebleau

An exquisite pair of Louis XV style ormolu-mounted amaranth and tulipwood marquetry meuble à hauter d'appui credenzas attributed to F. Linke at Fontainebleau.

Each credenza has a marble top with a central frieze drawer and a large lower compartment with two doors enclosing three adjustable shelves. At the center of the frieze is a Bacchus mascaron, flanked by two female bust caryatids in the manor of Charles Cressent with ostrich feathers in their hair, scroll form shoulders and a sea shell on her waist. The piece sits on short cabriole legs with paw-cast sabots.

Origin: French
Date: Late 19th century
Dimension: 43 in x 47 in x 19 in.

The caryatid angle mounts on the present cabinet are derived from the eighteenth-century models by Charles Cressent (d. 1768; P. Kjellberg, Le mobillier français du XVIII siècle, Paris, 2002, p. 226). In the nineteenth century, various ébénistes of the Second Empire and Belle Époque incorporated Cressent's mounts into innovative and interpretive designs in the Louis XV style. These expressive espagnolette mounts are perhaps first recorded on a pair of consoles by Mathieu Befort (dit Befort Jeune) circa 1860, sold Kinross House, Scotland and Property Removed from the Residence of Mrs. Winston Spencer Churchill, Christie's, South Kensington, 30 March 2011, lot 100, and were likely acquired by Linke or Zwiener following Befort's death in 1880.