Large French Ormolu-Mounted Boulle Vitrine

#18338: Large French Ormolu-Mounted Boulle Vitrine
Style of Boulle, André-Charles (French, 1642–1732)
French, circa 1880
Height 242cm, width 226cm, depth 60cm

This display cabinet is executed in ebonised wood inlaid with brass and tortoiseshell, mounted with chased ormolu and glazed across three tall doors.
The cabinet is decorated in the Boulle technique, named for André-Charles Boulle, cabinetmaker to Louis XIV, in which sheets of brass and tortoiseshell are cut together and set one into the other so that the two materials interlock exactly. The black ground is covered with a lacework of gilded scrolls, foliate arabesques and diapered panels, the brass cut fine enough to read as drawn onto the surface rather than let into it.
The frieze beneath the moulded cornice carries a broad band of scrolling ornament centred on a mask, while the stiles and door frames are inlaid with slender running borders. The angles of the upper section are fitted with modelled ormolu mounts.
Behind the three glazed doors, the interior is lined in green silk woven with a repeating gold rosette. The shelves are adjustable.
The lower section is fitted with three long drawers, each front inlaid with a Boulle panel of scrolling foliage centred on a gilt bronze handle and framed within a brass moulding. The drawers retain their original linings and rest above a stepped plinth base.
Boulle marquetry was revived in France during the second half of the nineteenth century, when Parisian ébénistes returned to the manner of the court of Louis XIV for a new generation of collectors. The present vitrine belongs to that tradition.
$67,500