Ref.3165
Important antique carved walnut fireplace with painting from the 17th century after Giovanni Andrea CASELLA

Important antique Renaissance style fireplace made ouf ot carved walnut. The hood is adorned with a large oil on canvas depicting a Renaissance ball scene after the Italian-Swiss painter Giovanni Andrea Casella (see inscriptions found on the back). Casella was born in Lugano, Switzerland, in 1619. He is active in the Italian Piedmont where he is a student of Pietro Da Cortona. He is famous from 1642 and realizes masterpieces for the Castello di Rivoli, the Royal Palace of Turin and the Duomo of Turin (Cathedral of the city). For the Duomo, he performed the painting of Saint-Côme and Saint-Damien on the sixth altar. He is also very active in Switzerland, his native country, where he works with his nephew Giacomo. Both painted in 1662 the two lateral frescoes of the choir of the Church of St. Roch in Lugano. This chimney is composed of old carved walnut elements dating from the 17th century, which were reassembled during the 19th century. The jambs are decorated with carved terms, sculpted as young men with long hair. The lintel is carved with a frieze decorated with interlaced foliage, putti and eagles with spread wings. In the center, a pilgrim is inscribed in a medallion supported by two angels.

Ref.10926
Antique large urn in French granite, mid-19th century

This large antique urn in French granite was made in the mid 19th century. The urn is decorated with a molded decoration and is on a pedestal whose lower part presents delicately carved patterns. One of the sides of the pedestal is adorned on its central part with carved volutes and geometric shapes.

Ref.18874
DAÏ NIPPON - Japanese style bamboo tea table with engraved and lacquered decor

This unique Japanese-style bamboo tea table was made around 1890 by Daï Nippon, upholstery shop specialized in Japanese style furniture in Paris. It is composed of carved wooden trays and a lower leg structure made of curved bamboo, using the curving technique created by Michael Thonet, a German-Austrian cabinetmaker and industrialist from the 19th century. This object belongs to Japonism , an artistic movement derived from the influence that Japanese art had on Western art during the second half of the 19th century. Painters such as Manet, Degas, Gauguin, and Mary Cassatt were inspired by this movement, as well as architects, and art object creators. As of 1851, the World Fairs contributed to the spread of Japonism in the Western world. This style led to some very colorful works of art and decorations of flowers, birds, dragons, and other animals. This tea table is inspired by Japanese art in its simple, natural shape, its curved outlines, its material – bamboo – and the engraved and lacquered design and mother-of-pearl settings on the trays. There are slightly abstract, simplified designs of flowers and plants. A white mother-of-pearl butterfly is set in the upper tray.

Ref.10515
After Jean-Auguste BARRE (1811-1896) - Set clock with Marie de Bourgogne going falcon hunting

This important silvered bronze, gilded bronze and white Statuary marble clock set was probably made around 1840-1844. The central group is depicting Mary of Burgundy on a falcon hunt, silvered bronze group after the model by Jean-Auguste Barre, placed on a pedestal. The only daughter of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, wife of Maximilian, Archduke of Austria and future Emperor, Mary of Burgundy was born in 1457. She became Duchess of Burgundy at the age of twenty, after the death of his father during the siege of Nancy. She is here represented practicing her favorite hobby, the hawk hunt. The moment chosen by the sculptor is crucial: Mary seems carefree while she will deadly fall in only a few minutes. She does not notice the nervousness of the rearing horse, which is barely restrained by the page. A lively movement animates the sculpted group, counterbalanced by the apparent serenity of the duchess. The fatal outcome is even more tragic: she falls from her horse in the Wijnendaal forest and dies a few days later, at the age of 25. Her destiny fascinates the romantic generation of which Jean-Auguste Barre belongs, in addition to awakening the taste for medieval subjects which is perfectly illustrated in this Troubadour style group. Indeed, the sculptor accurately represents the costumes: Mary wears a sumptuous damask dress and a surcot bordered with ermine and wears a typical small cap of linen under his crown with fleur-de-lys ; the page wears a doublet with broad armholes, breeches, poulaines and a feathered hat. The horse’s harness is meticulously depicted, inlaid with pearls and cabochons. The saddle carpet bears the wedding coat of arms of Burgundy and Habsburg. The Louvre Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago preserve in their collections a bronze group of the same model. After a first apprenticeship as a medalist with his father, Jean-Auguste Barre improved his training with David d'Angers and Achille Devéria. He had a long and successful career, receiving important commissions for the state or the imperial family. Favorite portraitist of Napoleon III, Jean-Auguste Barre executed no less than 26 busts of the Emperor and several others of Empress Eugenie. He also made the funerary monument of Queen Hortense de Beauharnais for the church of Rueil-Malmaison in 1858. For the city of Paris, he sculpts a group of four children in bronze symbolizing the seasons (for the Circus fountain at the Champs- Élysées, 1840), La Prudence (for the Saint-Michel fountain, 1860), Saint Luc (for the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul church), and the monumental bronze statue of Pierre-Antoine Berryer for the city of Marseille. He exhibited at the Salon from 1831 to 1886, winning a second class medal in 1834, a first class medal in 1840 and was appointed knight of the Legion of Honour in 1852. He was also one of the sculptors behind the creation of small female portrait statuettes in the 1830s, giving birth to sculpted groups of small dimensions characteristic of Louis-Philippe's reign and of romantic sculpture. The group of Mary of Burgundy is then a perfect example of the small romantic sculpture of the mid-nineteenth century. The small sizes are now more adapted to the bourgeois interiors and each model knows many casts, allowing a more constant income to the sculptors. Mary of Burgundy appears on the catalogs of the Susse foundry from 1844. The clock set we present here is also composed of two halberdiers in armor and helmets, as perfect example of the Troubadour style.

Ref.11718
18th century fireback with the coat of arms of Leopold I Duke of Lorraine

18th century cast iron fireback with the arms of Leopold I (1679-1729), duke of Lorraine and of Bar. Two giants each holding a club reminiscent of Hercules, stand on Renaissance style pedestals and support the coat of arms of the Duke bearing the ducal crown. The arms reveal the different titles of Leopold I: King of Jerusalem, of Hungary and Aragon, Duke of Anjou, of Bar, of Gueldre and Juliers. More precisely from left to right and top to bottom: arms of Hungary; fleur de lys of Naples, Cross of the Kings of Jerusalem, arms of Anjou, of the house of Alsace (in the center), gold fleur de lys of Anjou, the lions of Gueldre and Juliers and finally the arms of the Duke of Bar.

Ref.5100
Exceptional Napoleon III period mantel in veined Carrara marble, adorned with a rich décor of palmettes and arabesques.

Ref.15172
Louis XVI style trumeau with basket and garland of flowers