Maison Dielh, In Paris - Napoleon III Period Jewelry Box With Sinisant Decor.

Charles Guillaume Dielh (1811-1885), manufacturer of objects and small fancy furniture in Paris, 19 rue Charles Le Comte - Elegant Jewelry Serre Box in ebonized wood decorated with applied sinic motifs. Napoleon III period. Circa 1860.
Trimmed around its perimeter with a pearl, gilded bronze sticks finely crafted with foliage scrolls, a passementé motif alternating with stylized flowers, this elegant box, variegated on its rectangular shape of ebonized wood, is adorned with exquisite ornamentation in appliques. Silhouetted against a backdrop of lush aquatic plants, cranes enliven its rounded sides. These exotic stilt walkers echo on its flap four small feminine masks: crowned with a flock of flowering foliage, these charming faces with sinuous features festoon the lid in spandrels. Connected by a string of pearls, these frame a seductive “natural” floral arrangement. Delicately chiselled, twining leafy stems unfold in a supple and delicate movement their flowering branches of blooming peonies or in buds.
Treated in half-relief or high-relief, this highly sought-after ornamental adornment gives this Box, dedicated to the pretty adornments or delightful worldly effects of an Elegant Woman of Yesteryear, an undeniable "artistic effect".
Kittened on the entrance to its lock with a Rocaille cartouche embellished with two fluttering Cherubs, the Box, opened, reveals an interior sheathed in beige moiré silk with iridescent reflections.
Four small spinning top legs ringed with a pearl complete the composition of this “hand furniture” endowed with “exquisite grace”.
Formal elegance, sophistication of materials and superb chromatic contrast created enhanced with a touch of fantasy by the choice of ornamental elements of Sinic inspiration - and, more precisely, "Japanese" motifs then very fashionable in Parisian decorative arts since the 'Universal Exhibition of 1867- constitute the main adornments of this Box bearing, insculpted on the field of its lock, the signature of one of the most "skillful, very fine researcher" and "inventive" (Louis Enault) representative of " the great fantasy" of Parisian "artistic cabinetmaking" from the Second Empire: "DIELH R. Michel Le Comte, 19. PARIS".
In an article in the Encyclopedic Yearbook (Volume 9, p.1961) devoted in 1869 to the Maison d'ébenisterie Artistique de M.Dielh, the editor at the time wrote: "The elegant world and the artistic world have long known date and advantageously the manufacture and stores of Mr. Ch. Dielh; there are few bourgeois salons, in fact, which do not possess some of the charming fantasies imagined and executed by this intelligent manufacturer, so considerable and varied are the number, to name only the glove boxes, tea boxes, odor boxes, liquor cabinets, hand and standing planters, shelves, guréridons, boxes, necessities (...) This House almost has a monopoly of all the little fancy pieces of furniture, whose shapes and designs she constantly renews.
Alongside the masterful ceremonial pieces of furniture "with a richness of detail and purity of execution very rare at the time", today jewels of museum institutions (Le Triomphe de Mérovée, cabinet-medailler, 1867, Paris, Musée d'Orsay; Cigar cellar in cabinet, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum,..), or his "rich and graceful little pieces of furniture" playing with science and inventiveness of fashionable stylistic repertoires (Boullien, Louis XVI, neo-Greek, naturalist ,.), our Jewelry Box is one of those objects of “miniature cabinetmaking, decorated with satin, velvet and moire” “of “all shapes, all styles and all sizes” which, under under the tutelage of Charles-Guillaume Dielh (1811-1885), became “prodigies of elegance” (Louis Enault, 1867).
We will thus let ourselves be charmed by this Box created by this distinguished representative, as Auguste Luchet elegantly put it, of "all these little useful or useless pieces of furniture that we put on top of the big ones" (Le Monde Illustré, 1861) for which Dielh had no in his century that "few serious rivals" - except the Tahan or Alphonse Giroux Houses, very prolix in this field and just as popular with the fashionable Parisian female gender of the Second Empire.
Work of fine Parisian luxury tabletwork from the second half of the 19th century from the Napoleon III period. Signed by Charles-Guillaume Dielh, founder of the prestigious cabinetmaking house established in Paris, 19 rue Le Comte. Circa 1860.
Materials: Ebonized wood veneer; gilded bronze; moire
Dimensions: H.: 12 cm;- L.: 28 cm;- D.: 21 cm.
Very good condition. With his key. Functional lock.
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"Mr. Dielh, a simple worker twenty-five years ago, founded his own company, to which he gradually gave the considerable commercial development it has today, and to which he currently employs 150 WORKERS IN DIFFERENT WORKERS WORK OF ITS BEAUTIFUL AND INTERESTING INDUSTRY
“He is still a worker, a glorious upstart of work, this good Dielh, who once came with thirty-two francs in his pocket, and who is today one of the richest and most justly regarded manufacturers in the Place Lamy Octave, French Art at the Exhibition of Fine Arts Applied to Industry of 1874, pp.43-44 Dielh Ameublements, 19, rue Le Comte: "a first-rate manufacturing organization allows M.Dielh to extend the varieties of cabinetmaking to infinity; we can only note the very lively success of this production power of Maison Dielh, and recognize that if its efforts have been appreciated in all the Exhibitions of France and Abroad, the French public in particular has long classified M Dielh among the industrialists who neglect nothing to increase the artistic wealth of France
Related literature: Ledoux-Lebard, Denise, Les Ebénistes du nineteenth siècle, 1795-1889, Paris: Ed.de L'Amateur, 1984, p.25;- Mestag, Camille, L'Ameublement d'Art français, 1850-1900 , Paris, Ed. de L’Amateur, 2010, p. 192; -Payne, Christopher, Paris. The quintessence of Furniture in the 19th century, Ed.Monelle Hayot, 2018, pp.-241;

These few lines written by dans simultaneously highlight the reputation acquired by this distinguished Parisian cabinetmaker "specialized in the manufacture of travel kits, toiletries and tasteful and fancy cabinetmaking", the quality of execution, the refinement of his small pieces in which - like those of his predecessor, Alexandre-Louis Vervelle (1800-1856) - "They fully match the Jewelry Box presented, of which we can only emphasize the precious formal and ornamental elegance.

Adored by crowned heads as "fashionable customers from all over Europe", Maison Tahan founded in 1806 by Pierre-Lambert (1780-1844) modestly established as a "cabinetmaker of boxes and necessary items" in the capital (at 10 rue Basse -des-Remparts) was able to acquire, thanks to his personality, a privileged place within the industry of fine tablets, small luxury and fancy furniture. ,Competing with the no less distinguished representatives under the Second Empire of the luxurious and stylish Articles de Paris (Ch; Dielh, A. Giroux, P.Sormani, A.Vervelle, ..), awarded during the Exhibition of Products of the 'French industry of 1849, of the Universal Exhibitions of 1851,1855,1867 distinctions and medals for Italians never ceased to offer in "its magnificent stores" regularly visited by representatives of the Crown and very popular with the elegant world many times" marvels of modern luxury". Within these, were placed "the boxes which are the specialty and the glory of this house". It is clear that during the Second Empire, "the productions of Mr. Tahan had acquired a "reputation such that there is not a rich and aristocratic house where there is not an object" or piece of furniture "come out of the hands of this true artist".