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Auctioneer: Christie's London, King Street
Estimate: £500,000 - £800,000 ($810,500 - $1,296,800)
Price Realized*: $ 939,186 USD (577,250 GBP)
Age: Third Quarter 18th Century
Size: 15ft.7in. x 11ft. (475cm. x 336 cm.)
Origin: France
Type: Louis XV Savonnerie
Sale:
7827
The Collection of a Lady - Magnificent French Furniture, Savonnerie,
Sèvres Porcelain, Silver and Chinese Works of Art
Provenance
Probably commissioned by the Royal Garde-Meuble de la Couronne from the Duvivier workshops at the Savonnerie between 1745 and 1775.
Probably one of the many carpets sold from the Garde-Meuble at the time of the Revolution to settle the debts of the major suppliers to the state such as Chapeaurouge or Bourdillon.
Almost certainly purchased in the 1950s or 1960s and thence by descent.
Zoom in on Lot 600
See Lot 600 on Christie's
Additional Information as seen on Christie's:
A LOUIS XV SAVONNERIE CARPET
WOVEN IN THE DUVIVIER WORKSHOP AT CHAILLOT FROM A DESIGN BY PIERRE JOSSE PERROT, THIRD QUARTER 18TH CENTURY
Very light wear, corroded brown, a number of repaired cuts in from the border, slight loss to edges, backed
15ft.7in. x 11ft. (475cm. x 336 cm.)
Lot Notes
In 1742 control of the carpet workshop on the site of the old soap
manufactury in the village of Chaillot, just outside the Paris city
walls, passed from the Dupont family to that of Pierre-Charles
Duvivier. Duvivier, or Duvivier père as he came to be known to distinguish him from his son Nicolas-Cyprien who succeeded him as entrepreneur,
controlled the factory for over thirty years, until he retired in 1774.
Shortly after he took over the production a series of cartoons were
produced which then served as the basis for production of a
considerable number of small, medium and large size floor carpets for
most of the following thirty years
Some of the original carpet designs have survived in the papers of
Robert Cotte, who was himself one of the designers used by the
Savonnerie. These designs are now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris,
including the initial pen and chalk design for the present carpet. The
attribution of a number of them to Pierre-Josse Perrot, the main
designer at the Savonnerie from 1725-1750, is confirmed by a note on
one of them in a contemporary hand "dessin de Perrot",
and we can be confident that it is Perrot's hand in the initial drawing
for our carpet. Perrot was an artist who was renowned for his brightly
coloured rococo designs; Pierre Verlet describes Perrot's work as "the embodiment of Louis XV at the Savonnerie".
In addition to the preliminary drawing, the same archive also has a
watercolour and gouache drawing which shows many similarities, notably
ribbon-tied floral bouquets (des bouquets de fleurs liées d'un ruban) very similar to those found in the present carpet. These flowers are probably the work of Jean-Marc Ladey (circa 1710-1749).
Due to the extensive records from the Savonnerie workshops it is often
easier to date the first model of a particular carpet than the cartoon
itself. Many designs saw their first weaving in the years 1744-1746.
Each of them was woven a number of times over the successive years; one
was woven as many as twenty-three times between 1745 and 1790. The
first weaving of the present carpet design was finished in 1745, to be
followed by a number of further examples. This was typical of the
successful Savonnerie designs; it allowed the Garde-Meuble
administrators to respond to the needs of the Royal household and the
various palaces, and to deliver the carpets that were required within a
relatively short period of time.
Carpets for the royal chapel at Versailles
The stone flagged chapel floor had begun to be covered with Savonnerie
carpets ever since King Louis XIV had expressed the wish that this
should happen. The carpets were part of a massive decorative programme
which was started in 1709, whose accomplishment brought both beauty and
comfort to long ceremonies. Having completed the nave, work continued
on carpets for the lateral chapels throughout the eighteenth century.
In 1754 Queen Marie Leszcynska, the wife of Louis XV, had a carpet à bouquets de fleurs liées d'un ruban delivered for the area in front of the altar dedicated to the Virgin (no. 340 from the Garde-Meuble).
The description in the Garde-Meuble inventory reads:
N340 pour servir à la chapelle de la Vierge.
Un tapis d'ouvrage de laine de la Savonnerie, fond jaune chargé d'un
grand compartiment fond brun sur lequel est rapporté un plus petit
compartiment fond couleur de bronze entouré d'une guirlande de fleurs;
aux quatre coins sont quatre bouquets de fleurs liées de ruban bleu,
long de 4 aunes 1/6 sur 2 aunes 15/16 de large (sic)
With 1 aune
equating to 1.19m, this translates to 4.96 x 3.50m. Bearing in mind
that the present carpet has lost around 7-10cm. all around, these
dimensions are virtually identical to the original size of the present
carpet.
The same year an identical carpet was delivered for "Mesdames" (the daughters of Louis XV), "pour la chapelle de la Vierge"
The design seems to have been a particular favourite of the King since a number of examples were commissioned for the Royal Garde-Meuble. Two further examples were delivered for the use of the Royal household, one for the cabinet d'angle
at Versailles, the other for Madame de Pompadour's Château de Bellevue.
Further examples were also woven through the third quarter of the
century.
One of these carpets is still preserved today in the King's inner office also known as the cabinet d'angle
at Versailles, underneath the Riesener desk, in exactly the same place
for which one of the carpets of this design was originally woven.
A second example of this design is in the bedroom of the Comte de Camondo at the Nissim de Camondo Museum in Paris.
A third was sold through Marc Ferri at auction in Paris on 7 July 1992 as lot 175.
Bibliothèque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes, ms. Ha 18.
Jean Vittet, Tapis de la Savonnerie pour la chapelle royale de Versailles, RMN, 2006, pp.20 and 54-55.
Pierre Verlet, The Savonnerie, Office du Livre, Fribourg, 1982, pp. 66-68, 107, 274-275 and 280.
Elisabeth Floret, 'Les Tapis Français' in Tapis dans le Monde, Mengès, Paris, 1996.
La demeure d'un collectionneur, Musée Nissim de Camondo, Les Arts Décoratifs, Paris, 2007.
Sarah B. Sherrill, Carpets and rugs of Europe and America, New York, 1996, p.79.
Hali 65, October 1992, p.151
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