Ref.11313
Gabriel VIARDOT (1830-1906) - Japanese style shelf cabinet with mother of pearl decoration

Stamped "G. VIARDOT". This cabinet with shelves is signed by the Parisian cabinetmaker Gabriel Viardot and has a rich japanese style decor: dragon, heron and turtle in bronze, inlaid ivory, bone and mother of pearl decorated with flowering branches. It opens with three doors and a drawer. It is surmounted by an important Foo dog in polished varnished bronze, which is one of Gabriel Viardot's trademarks. Its asymmetrical construction is characteristic of the creations of the Parisian cabinetmaker. The composition thus alternates solid elements and empty spaces. The central leaf is adorned with a carved and inlaid mother-of-pearl panel from Tonkin. The most outstanding decorative element of this cabinet is a Foo dog crowning the piece of furniture. To the right of the cabinet, supporting a tablet, a crane resting on the back of a turtle is also made out of polished varnished bronze as the sinuous dragon located in the lower part of the furniture. These are, just like the winding base, often present on the furnitures by Gabriel Viardot.

Ref.14920
Taxil DOAT for the SÈVRES Manufacture, Oxblood Red Glazed Porcelain Jardinière, 1907

This large jardiniere in glazed red porcelain was created by Taxile Doat in 1907 in his workshop in Sèvres. A talented ceramist, Taxile Doat worked for the Sèvres manufactory between 1877 and 1905, while maintaining a personal workshop in Paris, and later in Sèvres. He taught ceramics in the United States between 1909 and 1915. Influenced by East Asian arts, he presents here a vase with a very refined form and decor. Its shape and color echo Asian pieces such as an 18th-century Chinese jardiniere. The ceramist adopted this form while making it his own, adding cabochons of green and blue glazed ceramic that define the character of the piece. The work is signed, dated, and located under the base. A porcelain vase with very similar decoration, which was part of the collection of the gallerist Oscar Graf, a specialist in the artist, also demonstrates Doat's fascination with traditional Chinese porcelain, whose forms he repeatedly reinterpreted.