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Chaise À Porteurs*

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Chaise À Porteurs* the rijksmuseum bulletin 100 the rijks two drawings by valadiermuseum in amsterdam bulletin A Seventeenth-Century Drawing for a Chaise à Porteurs* • esther van der hoorn • n 2013 the Rijksmuseum deployed < Detail of fig. 1 clearly by the same hand, which will I funds provided by the Decorative be reconstructed here. It comprises Art Fund to acquire a drawing of a two drawings now in the Metropolitan sedan chair or chaise à porteurs (fig. 1).1 Museum of Art, New York (figs. 2-3),2 This was a type of carriage used to a drawing formerly in the possession transport individuals across relatively of the Amsterdam art dealer Lodewijk short distances. Carrying poles on Houthakker (fig. 4), six drawings either side supported a wooden body formerly in the collection of Charlotte designed to accommodate a single von Prybram-Gladona (figs. 5-10) and person, who would enter through a three drawings exhibited by the dealer front panel that doubled as a door. The Armin B. Allen in New York in 1985 drawing, executed in pen and brown (figs. 11-13).3 ink with grey wash, depicts three sides The Metropolitan Museum’s draw- of a chaise à porteurs (from left to right: ings both bear a typewritten label, one the back, front and right-hand side). in French and the other in German, The dome is surmounted by a small pasted on to their mounts. The text finial, as are its four corners. It rests on the labels refers to three drawings, upon lion’s paw feet, and has sockets stating that they were consecutively in on both sides that would have held the collections of the French architect the poles for carrying the vehicle. Its Hippolyte Destailleur (1822-1893), side panels are framed by mouldings pp. 102-03 Damascène Morgand (1840-1898), who car ved with acanthus scrolls, while Fig. 1 wrote the sale catalogue for Destailleur’s the windows are set in separate frames anonymous, collection, and François Monod (born also decorated with foliage. Two Design for a Sedan 1877), the Director of the Musée du panels have been filled with whimsical Chair, Viewed from Luxembourg in Paris. The labels state the Back, the Front ornamentation; the third has been left that the drawings were part of lot 8 and the Right Side, empty. The schematic juxtaposition France, c. 1650-1700. in the sale of Destailleur’s collection of these different panels of a three- Graphite, pen and in 1893, which the catalogue describes dimensional object suggests that the brown ink, grey wash, as an album containing ‘45 pen and drawing was intended as a design for 470 x 570 mm. ink drawings and decorations for the manufacture of the chaise à porteurs Amsterdam, carosses and chaises à porteurs’.4 It it depicts. Rijksmuseum, sold to Morgand for 390 francs, and inv. no. rp-t-2014-38; was subsequently bought by Monod. purchased with Identification funds from the Peter Fuhring, in his catalogue of The drawing is one of a group of Decorative Art Fund/ the Houthakker Collection, also lists similar designs for chaises à porteurs Rijks museum Fonds. lot 8 in the Destailleur sale and the 101 the rijksmuseum bulletin 102 two drawings by valadier in amsterdam 103 the rijksmuseum bulletin Fig. 2 Fig. 3 anonymous, anonymous, Design for a Sedan Design for a Sedan Chair, France, Chair, France, c. 1650-1700. c. 1650-1700. Graphite, pen and Graphite, pen and brown ink, grey wash, brown ink, grey wash, 392 x 215 mm. 388 x 203 mm. New York, New York, Metropolitan Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Art, acc. no. 67.650.2; acc. no. 67.720; The Elisha Whittelsey The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Elisha Whittelsey Fund (1967). Fund (1967). 104 two drawings by valadier in amsterdam Fig. 4 anonymous, Design for the Side of a Sedan Chair, France, c. 1650-1700. Pen and brown ink, grey wash, 381 x 216 mm. Formerly in the collection of Lodewijk Houthakker. 105 the rijksmuseum bulletin Figs. 5-6 anonymous, Design for the Front and the Back of a Sedan Chair, France, c. 1650-1700. Pen and brown ink, grey wash, both approx. 370 x 210 mm. Formerly in the collection of Charlotte von Prybram-Gladona. Photo: Thierry de Maigret, Paris. 106 two drawings by valadier in amsterdam Figs. 7-8 anonymous, Design for the Back and the Front of a Sedan Chair, France, c. 1650-1700. Pen and brown ink, grey wash, approx. 370 x 210 mm; approx. 370 x 210 mm. Formerly in the collection of Charlotte von Prybram-Gladona. Photo: Thierry de Maigret, Paris. 107 the rijksmuseum bulletin Figs. 9-10 anonymous, Design for the Side and the Back of a Sedan Chair, France, c. 1650-1700. Pen and brown ink, grey wash, both approx. 370 x 210 mm. Formerly in the collection of Charlotte von Prybram-Gladona. Photo: Thierry de Maigret, Paris. 108 two drawings by valadier in amsterdam Figs. 11-13 anonymous, collec tions of Morgand and Monod that kind could not have contained the Design for the Sides as the provenance for the drawing by Rijksmuseum drawing, as it measures and the Back the same hand. It later came into the 47 by 57 centimetres, and would also of a Sedan Chair, posses sion of Kurt Meissner of Zürich, be too small for the Metropolitan and France, c. 1650-1700. from whom Houthakker bought it.5 Houthakker ones, which are around Pen and brown ink, grey wash, The two drawings in New York and 38 by 21 centimetres. To add to the con - 283 x 234 mm; the one in Amsterdam bear the same fusion, the album in lot 8 is described 380 x 200 mm; inscriptions in graphite on the back, by the expert Morgand as containing 380 x 221 mm. namely ‘29/no 2’ and ‘französische drawings ‘done in France in the New York, Armin Meister um 1700’. This suggests that eighteenth century by an artist of B. Allen, Inc. they were all owned by the same the school of Oppenord’.6 Morgand German-speaking owner, probably the moreover considered the fact that German-born American antiquarian several of the crowned cartouches Walter Schatzki (1899-1983), from within these designs feature the letter whom the Metropolitan Museum P permitted ‘the supposition that these acquired its drawings in 1967 and drawings were done for Madame de who may have been responsible for Pompadour’.7 Both this suggestion their typewritten labels as well. Might and the attribution to an artist from the third drawing referred to on these the school of Gilles-Marie Oppenord labels be the sheet now in the Rijks- seem anachronistic in view of the early museum? It seems unlikely that these Baroque style of the ornament depicted drawings were brought together after in the designs. However, the catalogue the Destailleur sale. Surprisingly, entry also mentions designs for however, the album that was lot 8 in ‘carosses’, and no design for a carriage the Destailleur sale was described by the maker of the Rijksmuseum as being quarto size (approximately drawing is known to exist. The album 30 by 23 centimetres). An album of may thus have contained groups of 109 the rijksmuseum bulletin Fig. 14 drawings by dif ferent hands, dating basic shape or outline of the views Detail of fig. 1, from different periods. What ever the in different drawings. This may have marquis’s coronet case, it cannot be stated with certainty been done by blackening the verso above the cartouche. that the Rijksmuseum drawing was of an earlier model with chalk, after part of lot 8 in the Destail leur sale. which an imprint was made by placing As well as being much larger than it on another piece of paper and the other drawings by this hand, the tracing the outlines. Two possible Rijks museum drawing is the only templates may be identified: the first known example in which three sides of can be seen in figures 4, 9 and 13, where a chaise à porteurs have been depicted the bodywork slopes along the exact on a single sheet. The smaller drawings same lines, with the bottom frame may once have likewise made up larger displaying the same irregularities; the sheets with different views of the second in figures 5, 6 and 7, where sedan chairs, but have been cut. The the windows, paws and door locks are Metropolitan’s drawing in figure 3, for identical. The Rijksmuseum drawing example, has a small spot of grey ink and the drawings in figures 2 and 3, at the lower left margin that may have however, were not made using been part of another view since cut off. templates, as graphite lines made by This assumption implies that on other the ruler are still visible. sheets the separate views of the chaise à porteurs would have been more widely The Use of Ornament spaced than in the Rijksmuseum Side panels of carriages often featured drawing, where the depictions of the monograms or coats of arms. Carriages different side panels nearly touch. provided a rare opportunity for show- In the case of these similarly sized casing social position and personal drawings of single views of chaises wealth in public as they were among à porteurs, their margins too appear the few material objects seen outside to be of similar size. It may therefore their owners’ private quarters. First be assumed that the actual depictions and foremost, the imagery decorating of the chaises à porteurs on these these vehicles should identify their sheets are of near identical scale and occupants.
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