Charles Cressent is the great cabinetmaker of Régence and early Louis XV styles. He softens the shapes in the furniture invented by Boulle, commodes, médailliers and bureaux plats.
Originally trained as a sculptor and caster of bronze, he combined this specialty with the cabinetmaking, which was prohibited by the strict regulations of the corporations and occasioned to him some major difficulties with his competitors. The style of his bronzes is unique and has not been imitated.
Adding the fact that he wrote the catalogs of his sale inventories, a furniture by Cressent is easy to authenticate. The requirement of the estampille (stamp) from 1743 provides a breaking point for a date, to be used cautiously.
Cressent decorated his commodes with volutes of flowers and palms. The shape of a desk did not allow the same height of ornament, which he compensated by adding gilt bronze busts in the four corners in the extension of each leg. Various figures were available in Cressent's catalog. The heads of smiling women, young and less young, were named espagnolettes at that time.
On July 9 in London, Christie's sells a bureau plat in satinwood and amaranth decorated with espagnolettes, lot 15 estimated £ 1M.
This desk with its 206 x 97 cm top is the largest model produced by Cressent, executed in the early 1740s. Like most bureaux plats from that period, it lost its cartonnier (filing cabinet) equipped with a clock which was certainly decorated with an opulent bronze.
Originally trained as a sculptor and caster of bronze, he combined this specialty with the cabinetmaking, which was prohibited by the strict regulations of the corporations and occasioned to him some major difficulties with his competitors. The style of his bronzes is unique and has not been imitated.
Adding the fact that he wrote the catalogs of his sale inventories, a furniture by Cressent is easy to authenticate. The requirement of the estampille (stamp) from 1743 provides a breaking point for a date, to be used cautiously.
Cressent decorated his commodes with volutes of flowers and palms. The shape of a desk did not allow the same height of ornament, which he compensated by adding gilt bronze busts in the four corners in the extension of each leg. Various figures were available in Cressent's catalog. The heads of smiling women, young and less young, were named espagnolettes at that time.
On July 9 in London, Christie's sells a bureau plat in satinwood and amaranth decorated with espagnolettes, lot 15 estimated £ 1M.
This desk with its 206 x 97 cm top is the largest model produced by Cressent, executed in the early 1740s. Like most bureaux plats from that period, it lost its cartonnier (filing cabinet) equipped with a clock which was certainly decorated with an opulent bronze.
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