Henry Dasson rÉgulateur de parquet Paris, 1888

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Description

Henry Dasson
height 7 ft. 3 in.; width 19 in.; depth 11 7/8 in.
221 cm; 48.2 cm; 30.2 cm

amarante, sycomore and bois de violette parquetry, the white enamel dial signed Henry Dasson / A PARIS, and signed henry Dasson 1888 to the right-hand side gilt-bronze molded edge, the carcass stamped HENRY DASSON 1888 to the back.

Literature

D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Mobilier Français du XIX Siècle, pp. 146-151

C. Payne, 19th Century European Furniture, p. 35

D. Alcouffe et al., Furniture Collections in the Louvre, Vol. I, p. 286-287; and C. Dreyfus, Musée du Louvre, pl. XXI, no. 135, for illustrations of the 18th century model (see also P. Verlet, Les Bronzes Dorés Français du XVIIIe Siècle, p. 116, fig. 145, for an illustration of the 18th century model and the barometer copied by Grohé, p. 384, fig. 394. Verlet attributes the 18th century model to Riesener (p. 117)).

Catalogue Note

The present régulateur de parquet is a copy of the model attributed to Jean-Henri Riesener (reçu Maître en 1768), executed in 1785, and now in the permanent collection of the Musée du Louvre. This was one of the most popular of the 18th century models admired by the finest cabinetmakers in the second half of the 19th century, and it is interesting to note that a barometer version of the clock, also in the Louvre, was made by the cabinetmaker Guillaume Grohé circa 1860, whose work was described at the 1867 Exposition Universelle as 'supéieurs à ceux de Risener et Gouthière.' François Linke also made model, archive number 852.

Riesener was arguably one of the three greatest French ébénistes of the 18th century, ranking alongside André-Charles Boulle and Charles Cressent. As a young man, he entered the workshop of Jean-François Oeben (maître in 1761 but previously active as an ébéniste du Roi), eventually taking over the workshop after Oeben's death in 1763, marrying his widow some four years later. He is renowned for completing the famous bureau du Roi Louis XV, designed and started by Oeben and made with the collaboration of another young apprentice, Jean-François Leleu, himself reçu maître en 1764.

An identical clock, unsigned, was sold in these rooms, A Private Collection, Part I, October 26, 2006, lot 202, $114,000.