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By Culturekiosque Staff
LONDON, 19 MARCH 2013 — An extravagant French ormolu-mounted
tulipwood, kingwood, bois satiné and marquetry grand piano by
Erard sold for £169,875 ($253,623) at Christie's London, King
Street last Thursday 14 March 2013. The art case is attributed to
Joseph-Emmanuel Zwiener, Paris and the mounts designed by Leon Message,
circa 1905.
Estimated at £100,000 – 200,000 ($149,300 - $298,600), the piano is in
the distinctive fin de siècle style of high-rococo fused with Art
Nouveau and was completed in April 1905 and sold for Fr11,400 on 5 October
1908.
The Erard piano was a highlight of The Opulent Eye - 500
Years: Decorative Arts Europe, an auction sale featuring 248 lots of
sumptuous furniture and works of art from the 19th century including
tables, suites of chairs, marble and bronze statuary, clocks, and lighting
from international collections.
The Erard archives records this piano as:
Grand piano n°1,
style Louis the XV, very rich, bois satiné, decorated with bronze doré (6
feet)
It was finished in April 1905 and sold for 11,400 francs
on 5 October 1908 to Mme. Vve Th. Rivierre of 3 rue de Luynes, Paris.
Marie Rivierre was the widow of Théodore Rivierre who founded the firm of
Clouterie Rivierre, a leading French pre-war manufacturer of nails, pins
and tacks. Following her husband's death in 1900, Marie Rivierre expanded
the factory and entered new international markets to Argentina and
Indochina. On the eve of the First World War, the factory employed four
hundred people. She participated in the war effort, particularly by making
shoe tacks for the army. She died at Chantilly in January 1937 aged 64
years.
This piano is in the distinctive fin de siècle style
of high-rococo fused with Art Nouveau. This new style was formed by the
artistic association of the ébénistes Joseph-Emmanuel Zwiener and
François Linke with the sculptor Léon Messagé, aided by the proximity of
Linke's workshop at 170 rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine to Zwiener's at 12
rue de la Roquette and Messagé's nearby studio at 40 rue
Sedaine.
Messagé was inspired by Meissonnier's asymmetrical
ornament of the early 18th century to produce rococco, flowing,
designs for furniture and to sculpt gilt-bronze mounts of lively,
high-relief allegorical figures linked by delicate organic frames. Messagé
supplied designs to Linke from circa 1885 and had worked with or
for Zwiener since probably 1880 or 1881, and is also recorded to have
worked for the firm of Boudet. However it was at the Paris 1889
Exposition Universelle that Messagé achieved international
recognition when he, and Zweiner, received a gold medal for an important
serre-bijoux cabinet, subsequently sold Christie's, London, 17
March 2011, lot 409 (£623,650).
In 1890 Messagé published his
Cahier des Dessins et Croquis Style Louis XV, in which a total of
thirty-six designs, ranging from furniture to table objects to silverware,
were made available to the public. It is while providing sculptural
designs for Zwiener's more exuberant furniture that Messagé appears to
have come into contact for the first time with François Linke, with whose
association he is best remembered for producing the triumphant display of
furniture in 'le style Linke' at the Paris 1900 Exposition
Universelle.
Following Messagé's premature death in 1901, his
widow sold the rights to her late husband's designs to Linke. However not
all Messagé's designs were controlled posthumously by Linke, and although
it is possible that Linke made the art-case of the present piano
circa 1905, the success of the Exposition Universelle stand
and the publication of Dessins et Croquis Style Louis XV, meant
that Messagé's influence had permeated the whole Parisian cabinetmaking
community. Nor did Messagé work alone. Collaborators such as Fernand
Dubois, Surbled and Adolf Sédille also worked freelance for Linke and the
names of other sculptors such as Pouillon and Bruchon as also associated
with Messagé. All would have continued and reworked Messagé's style (C.
Payne, François Linke, 1855-1946 - The Belle Epoque of French
Furniture, Woodbridge, 2003, Ch. III, pp. 71-98).
Messagé's influence is omnipresent in the sweeping casework of this
piano. The serpentine and bombé curves are richly mounted with
flowering acanthus encadrements. Messagé touch is especially
evident in the water-spilling shells to the short sides and the
rocaille and tree branch framed cartouches enclosing a concave
panel set with a water-spilling urn. This urn, surround by bulrushes,
compares closely to a similar mount, illustrated opposite page, top right,
designed by Messageé for Linke's 'Bahut Marine' cabinet, sold Christie's,
London, 9 December 2010, lot 257 (£780,450).
The exact style of the
mounts which favour organic forms, as opposed to figural sculpture,
together with the type of bois de bout floral marquetry used, most
strongly suggest an attribution to Zwiener. The German born Zwiener was
summoned to Berlin in 1895 to produce a suite of furniture for the Kaiser
Wilhelm II (1859-1941). Thus after 1895 Maison Jansen took over Zwiener's
Paris atelier, renaming it Zwiener Jansen Successeur. Given that
Erard records the date of manufacture to be 1905, Erard most probably
therefore engaged Zwiener Jansen Successeur to make the
case.
Comparable art case piano's by Zwiener include Erard serial
number 80560, shown at the 1900 Exposition Universelle, sold
Christie's, London, 28 September 2006, lot 150 (£243,200); Erard serial
number 108641, made circa 1902-1904, sold Sotheby's, New York, 24 October
2012, lot 154 ($422,500); Eard serial number 73440, with vernis-martin
decorated case by Zwiener or Linke, sold Sotheby's, 15 April 2011, lot 226
($1,112,500).
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