Carved walnut sideboard; France; 1550-1600

Sideboard of carved walnut. In the style of Ducereau. The upper stage is occupied by a cupboard with two doors in front each carved with views of buildings in perspective. Between the doors is a mask terminating in scrollwork and below are two drawers with carved and moulded fronts. Each of the front angles is boldly carved with a grotesque terminal figure curving downwards and terminating in acanthus foliage and lion’s paws. The side panels of the upper stage and the central panel on the lower stage are carved with views of buildings in perspective. The whole rests on a shaped platform supported on ball feet.

Bequeathed by George Salting

Part of the Salting Bequest. Formerly in the Chabrières d’Arles Collection.

Comparable pieces
Frick Collection, New York (16.5.86). See Joseph Godla, Re-evaluation of French Renaissance furniture
at The Frick Collection, New York, USA, in Contributions to the Vienna Congress 2012; © The International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works 2012

For the Chabrière-Arlès collection, see Migeon (Gaston), 'La Collection Chabrière-Arlès', Les Arts, octobre 1903, n.22, pp.7-17.
Garnier (J. Fr.) 'Le goût du Moyen-Age chez les collectionneurs lyonnais du XIXe s.', Revue de l'Art, 47, 1980, pp. 58-9.

The like V&A dressoir was formerly in the Chabrière-Arlès collection in Lyon and Paris, and exhibited at the Exposition Retrospective de Lyon 1877 and at the Exposition Universelle in 1900 in Paris to great acclaim - bestowing 'a certain enhanced status of nobility on the furniture' (Koeppe), then purchased via Duveen as with all Frick pieces in 1914-18). Koeppe observes that the activities of Albert Figdor (Vienna) and Frederic Spitzer (Paris) or various members of Rothschild family caused a constant escalation of prices - only continued post 1900 when US private collectors like John Pierpont Morgan, Benjamin Altman and later WR Hearst eagerly competed with museums to acquire the best from clever dealers like Duveen with worldwide contacts. The competition and emulation induced elaborately carved furniture of the popular types to be restored and embellished at great expence.

Maurice Chabrières-Arlès (1829-97) was a banker and art connoisseur from Lyon whose collection of renaissance decorative arts was particularly notable for furniture, probably formed during the 1870s. By 1882 he had moved to Paris (Hôtel de Tessé, 1, quai Voltaire. He was a friend and executor of Frédéric Spitzer (1815-90). He was President of the administrative commission for the 1877 Exposition retrospective de Lyon (Palais du Commerce). In 1881 he loaned objects to the South Kensington Museum and acted as chairman for the exhibition of Spanish and Portuguese Ornamental Art.
See also Giraud, J. B. (Jean Baptiste), Meubles en bois sculpté ayant figuré à l'Exposition rétrospective de Lyon, 1877. Cinquante planches en héliogravure. Lyon, propiété de l'auteur, 1880, and
Giraud, J. B., Recueil descriptif et raisonné des principaux objets d'art ayant figuré à l'exposition rétrospective de Lyon 1877 : quatre-vingt-trois planches (héliogravures) hors texte, [Lyon?] : Propriété de l'auteur, 1878.

W.208:4-1910