Ref.3345
Antique Louis XV style fireplace, Pompadour model, in Brocatelle du Jura marble

This Louis XV style fireplace was made in the 19th century. It is a Pompadour fireplace made out of Jura Brocatelle marble.

Ref.11450
Rudolf ERNST (1854-1932) - Portrait of a high-ranking Austro-Hungarian dignitary

This extraordinary portrait was painted by Rudolf Ernst according to a very particular and very innovative technique. It is indeed painted porcelain including a metallic mesh. The work depicts, on an ocher background, an elderly man, with a long white beard and bushy eyebrows. His gaze - a bluish gray - is fixed on the spectator. Richly dressed, he wears an emerald green velvet doublet embellished with brown fur at collar, armholes and sleeves. These velvet sleeves open on a beautiful gilded fabric (probably silk) puffed on the upper part and tightening above the elbow. He wears a green velvet hat with exposed lapels covered with fur. All these elements indicate the rank of the man represented: no doubt he is a high dignitary or a member of the Austro-Hungarian nobility. In the present state of our research and according to our knowledge, it is difficult for us to give a date to this work but it could have been exhibited at the World’s Fair of 1889 during which the artist was awarded a bronze medal. Rudolf Ernst is a French-Austrian painter. Born in Vienna in 1854, his father was a painter and architect. He was a member of the Vienna Fine Art Academy where Rudolf Ernst entered as a student in 1869. In 1874, he left the Academy to complete his training in Rome before moving to Paris in 1876. He exhibited regularly, after 1877, at the Salon of French Artists, realizing, at first, genre scenes and portraits. He travels to Spain, Morocco and Turkey, where he paints portraits of Ottoman characters from the royal court. His orientalist paintings are the best known part of his work. He devoted himself to Orientalism in 1885, creating interiors of mosques or harems, chess players, hookah smokers and even beautiful odalisques. Particularly productive in the 1890s, Ernst was successful and received a bronze medal at the World's Fair of 1889 and a medal of honor at the World’s Fair of 1900. From his trip to Constantinople in 1890, he learned how to improve his production of earthenware tiles, a technique he had learned in Paris from Léon Fargue, a ceramist and glassmaker. His faience tiles are not only orientalist: he includes characters from the Commedia dell'Arte or the Renaissance. However, these works are of a reduced format, unlike our portrait which dimensions and technique reveal a particularly rare work.

Ref.11427
Gabriel Viardot (attributed to), Japanese table with bones birds marquetery, circa 1870-1880

This japanese table, made of tainted sycamore in the last decades of the 19th century, is attributed to the Parisian furniture maker Gabriel Viardot (1830-1906), specialized in the creation of Chinese and Japanese inspired furntiure. It's during the 1867 World Fair where he discovered the Japanese Art, the Gabriel Viardot decided to devote himself to “Chinese-Japanese style furniture”. It’s with this production that he was awarded a silver medal at the World's Fair of 1878. His furniture was produced thanks to lacquered and carved panels sent directly from China or Japan and decorated with mother of pearl inlays from Tonkin. He enlivened his furniture with bronze decorations, of which he made all the designs by hand. In 1885, he participated in the World Exhibition of Antwerp where he obtained a gold medal. At this time, the shop employed 90 – 100 workers, sculptors or cabinetmakers, a lot of who were educated directly by Gabriel Viardot. Following this exhibition, Gabriel Viardot was promoted to the rank of Knight in the Legion of Honor (December 29 1885). In 1889, he was at the World Exhibition that took place in Paris and awarded a gold medal. He obtained the same award at the World's Fair of 1900. The furniture maker is making here, a very beautiful table of which the shape and the decors are inspired by the Far East esthetic. The slab with enrolled edges is adorned on its central part with an important inlaid decoration of bones depicting birds on cherry tree branches. It rests on a very worked foot receiving a carved and open work decor as bronze pieces with high quality carving, typical of the furniture maker's work. The feet with sharp claws sculpted in the wood support on their middle an open work strut.