Lot 159: A PAIR OF LOUIS XVI ORMOLU-MOUNTED BOIS CITRONNIER AND AMARANTH CONSOLES DESSERTES

BY GASPARD SCHNEIDER, CIRCA 1785-90
Each with an inset D-shaped bowed grey-veined white marble top framed by a stepped moulding, above a panelled frieze decorated with beaded panels and fitted with a spring-operated drawer, on square tapering legs headed by stepped capitals and joined by an undertier and terminating in circular tapering legs with mille-aies capitals and terminating in ball sabots, one stamped 'GASPAR SCHNEIDER' and 'JME', the other stamped 'JME', one inscribed in chalk '7/2' and 'N.2'
34 in. (87 cm.) high; 48 1/2 in. (123.5 cm.) wide; 16 3/4 in. (43 cm.) deep (2)

Anonymous sale, Maître Rheims, Palais Galliéra, 7 December 1967, lot 99.

Gaspard or Caspar Schneider, maître in 1786.

With their elegant, clean lines, refined ebony and boxwood 'shadows' to and tapering herm legs, these consoles dessertes clearly reveal Schneider's debt to Martin Carlin (maître in 1766). Schneider, born in Augsburg, is recorded working in the rue de Faubourg Saint-Antoine in the 1780s and in 1785 married Carlin's widow. From the inventory taken of Carlin's workshop after his death, it is known that Schneider inherited a valuable amount of his stock and continued to supply the marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre (Pradère, Les Ebénistes Français du XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1989, p. 419). These conoles dessertes were in all probability also commissioned by Daguerre.

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.