Rare Writing Case From The Empire Period

 


Simply veneered in beautiful native burr ash, the overall composition of this inkstand with its stylised palmettes, solemn Apollo masks and winged anthropomorphic putti with scrolling tails recalls the designs of Charles Percier and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine, Napoleon’s architects and decorators who supplied some of the period’s most celebrated designs. A closely related ebony inkstand of identical design to our own was in Napoleon’s study and is currently preserved in the château de Reuil-Malmaison (inv. MM40.47.7227) and another closely related amboyna inkstand with winged victories instead of putti was sold Kohn, Paris 17^th December 2012, lot 82 (€73,000). The popularity of this model with clients of wealth and importance is demonstrated by a related inkstand mounted with a clock in the Spanish Royal Collection (J. Ramon Colon de Carvajal, Catalogo de Relojes del Patrimonio Nacional, Madrid, 1987, no. 253, p. 268). Of a similar wood and with identical frieze mounts, this model has seated women in place of putti and is almost certainly from the same workshop as our example. 
The celebratred orfèvreMartin-Guillaume Biennais (1764-1843), a major proponent of Percier and Fontaine, was known to have produced designs for a number of writing sets for the Emperor and his family (P. Arrizoli-Clémentel, Burlington Magazine, March, 1998, pp.195-201). Though no known executed examples of these writing sets survive, a related inkstand on the London art market, with different frieze mounts and swans instead of putti, is attributed to Martin-Guillaume Biennais and it is possible, given the related examples made for the Imperial household, that our escritoire was produced by his workshop.