Lot n° 400
Estimation :
800 - 1000
EUR
Result without fees
Result
: 4 400EUR
Gabriel VIARDOT (1830-1906)
Living room table in carved, moulded, patinated and burgauté wood with mother-of-pearl from Tonkin, with extreme oriental decoration of palaces, flowers, plants and openwork foliage. It opens by a drawer in belt. The moving feet finished in claw and ball and surmounted by grotesque masks. Beautiful bronze trim such as scraps and openwork plates in the belt. Signed.
76 x 114.5 x 67.5 cm
Important set of furniture by Gabriel VIARDOT (1830-1906)
Text written by Sophie REYSSAT journalist and published in the GAZETTE DROUOT of 5 February 2021 page 11 - 12.
Gabriel Viardot is one of the greatest representatives of Japanese furniture, in vogue at the end of the 19th century. Today's enthusiasts will be able to see this through this collection of a panel of furniture emblematic of his art, more than fifteen pieces offered in a gentle range, from 200 to 3000.
Viardot began his career as a woodcarver in 1849, before taking over the family cabinetmaking business in 1861 and changing its destiny. Although he always kept the principle of making small living room furniture, he literally revolutionized the style. Abandoning, around 1865, the pastiches of the Renaissance and the great historical canons, he was one of the first to start creating furniture in the "Japanese Chinese style". He followed the interest of his contemporaries in the land of the Rising Sun, sparked by the arrival of a multitude of Japanese objects on the market following the forced opening of Japan to the rest of the world in 1853, and reinforced by their presentation at World Fairs.
The craze was such that the term "japonism", coined in 1872 by the art critic Philippe Grande Burty, was consecrated as early as 1878 by its entry in Pierre Larousse's Grand Dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle, then in the work of Émile Littré in 1886. And Viardot is one of its main ambassadors. Full of fantasy, his creations were regularly awarded medals at the Universal Exhibitions from 1867 to 1900; the jury praised "his Japanese furniture, which is always very interesting both in its tone and in its perfect execution". His display furniture - showcases and saddles - is particularly well represented in this sale. At a time when the upper bourgeoisie had a passion for trinkets, objets d'art and small bronzes, which decorated reception rooms in abundance, he produced a large number of them. For this, he was able to count on some one hundred and twenty employees, both cabinetmakers and sculptors, working for him in two workshops. This enabled him to produce a wide range of furniture presented in his name by dealers in several major cities in France, but also to respond to private orders. This diversity is illustrated by the other pieces on sale, which nevertheless underline his predilection for flying or small furniture: tables, including a games table and a pedestal table, chairs and a meridian, a desk and a fireplace screen...
Inventiveness and quality
Gabriel Viardot has, however, produced more imposing works. An 1886 wardrobe in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris is a good example of this. Prestigious commissions, such as that of President Georges Clemenceau for his bedroom and office, have also enabled him to create exceptional furniture. His most spectacular collection is undoubtedly the one created to display the Asian objects collection of Clémence d'Ennery, whose private mansion now houses the museum of the same name. For gallery owner Marc Maison, these cabinets perfectly illustrate his modus operandi: "At Viardot, for high-quality furniture, there is a real research work. Like the 18th century Mercier merchants, he chose Japanese panels; you can see how they were cut.
Everything has really been thought out, because there are almost continuities with the European framework of the furniture. All the ornamental bronzes are inspired by Japanese bronzes, sometimes copied almost identically." If the bronze-makers working for him could also supply other Japanese cabinetmakers, such as Cyrille Ruffier des Aimes, Viardot had the exclusivity of certain models: his signature can be found there.
Dragons, flowering plants and mother-of-pearl from Tonkin
The furniture presented in this sale is decorated, naturally, with gilded bronzes with dragon decoration. They emerge from a crevice in the piece of furniture, cling to a pagoda-shaped cornice, appear on doors, curl up on a base... Carved in wood, the creature also crawls on the back of a chair or serves as a console in a shop window.
A good omen in Asia, the mythical being was immediately adopted by Viardot, who made it his fetish animal. Marc
Maison notes that
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