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拍品专文
Much like the sumptuous carpets woven in the same workshop, Savonnerie screens were highly prized during the 18th century and reserved almost exclusively for the use of the Royal family, nobility or as the most prestigious diplomatic gifts. These four fabulous scenes were woven after cartoons by Alexandre-François Desportes, the well-known flower and bird painter (1661-1743), dated circa 1719, the year he was received at the Académie Royale de peinture. Folding screens or paravents were a practical method of excluding the draughts experienced in the large palace rooms or, for retaining the heat of a fire primarily found in the ante-rooms and dining rooms. The taller examples, measuring between six to eight feet in height, backed in some hard-wearing plain material stood in ante-rooms, while smaller examples were used in the private rooms. Those in the royal apartments were more luxurious and covered in velvets, damask or brocade that would be en suite with other furniture covers in the room.
The Savonnerie workshop began weaving panels for screens in 1707 and they immediately became popular and frequently woven. According to Verlet, the records of the factory show that the Chaillot workshop produced 750 individual screen panels between 1707 and 1791. It should be taken into account that most screens were six-paneled and some double-sided, meaning that about one hundred screens in total were woven during the 18th century.
The first screens appeared in 1707 when the Garde-Meuble bought 67 panels from the Dupont atelier at the Savonnerie. Only three painters produced the screen designs which were used and reused throughout the entire production lasting into the reign of Louis XV. Belin de Fontenay and Claude Audran were responsible for the earlier larger cartoons, while François Desportes, executed the sketches which form the basis for the panels of this screen. His design was first woven in 1719 and continued to be used in the royal apartments until the Revolution. In 1772 panels for four six-leaf screens of this design were delivered for the use of the royal family at Versailles.
Two of Desporte's original watercolor designs for these panels survive, one in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the other in the Sèvres factory archives. The scenes drew inspiration from classical fables, which had been compiled and translated into French free verse by Jean de la Fontaine in the closing years of the seventeenth century. Perhaps because of its engagement with the literary tastes of the time, the design proved immensely popular: sets are recorded being woven in 1719, 1722, 1735, and 1740. Though records are sparser for the second half of the century, and examples were still being delivered to Versailles into the 1780s. However, as time went by, the complexity of Desporte's original design was slowly simplified: the canopy of feathers above each scene, for example, was switched for a molded clasp around twenty years after the first screens went into production. The panels of the present lot are of the first, earlier, type.
The panels were delivered unmounted by the factory and then assembled by the upholsterer, normally into two screens of six panels each; although Verlet also notes the existence of four and five panel screens. Initially the panels were mounted back to back, so that the screen was double-sided, but as time went on, panels began to be mounted on one side only for the sake of economy. The fashion was immediately popular, and more panels were woven in the first half of the 18th century. The six-leaf folding screen at Waddesdon Manor, part of the collection of James A. de Rothschild, has panels woven from designs by Desportes sometime between 1719 and 1739. The designs follow the arrangement of earlier Savonnerie designs in that the decoration is in three tiers.
A number of panels survive today in major public and private collections. Two screens of six panels, given as diplomatic gifts to the royal family of Sweden, are kept at the royal palace in Stockholm. A six-panel screen belongs to the Huntington Collection, San Marino, California, successively from the collections of the Duke of Sutherland and Charles J. Wertheimer; another is kept at the Mobilier National, Paris (GMT 1161) illustrated in Verlet, op.cit., p. 300, fig. 183; one of five leaves is in the collections of the Louvre; a five-leaf screen was sold in Paris and acquired by Seligman in 1927; a four-leaf screen from the collection of the Earl of Caledon at Tyttenhanger Park was sold in London in 1973, and later acquired by the J Paul Getty Museum; with single panels found in the Carnavalet museum, Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Longford Castle, Wiltshire.
The Savonnerie workshop began weaving panels for screens in 1707 and they immediately became popular and frequently woven. According to Verlet, the records of the factory show that the Chaillot workshop produced 750 individual screen panels between 1707 and 1791. It should be taken into account that most screens were six-paneled and some double-sided, meaning that about one hundred screens in total were woven during the 18th century.
The first screens appeared in 1707 when the Garde-Meuble bought 67 panels from the Dupont atelier at the Savonnerie. Only three painters produced the screen designs which were used and reused throughout the entire production lasting into the reign of Louis XV. Belin de Fontenay and Claude Audran were responsible for the earlier larger cartoons, while François Desportes, executed the sketches which form the basis for the panels of this screen. His design was first woven in 1719 and continued to be used in the royal apartments until the Revolution. In 1772 panels for four six-leaf screens of this design were delivered for the use of the royal family at Versailles.
Two of Desporte's original watercolor designs for these panels survive, one in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the other in the Sèvres factory archives. The scenes drew inspiration from classical fables, which had been compiled and translated into French free verse by Jean de la Fontaine in the closing years of the seventeenth century. Perhaps because of its engagement with the literary tastes of the time, the design proved immensely popular: sets are recorded being woven in 1719, 1722, 1735, and 1740. Though records are sparser for the second half of the century, and examples were still being delivered to Versailles into the 1780s. However, as time went by, the complexity of Desporte's original design was slowly simplified: the canopy of feathers above each scene, for example, was switched for a molded clasp around twenty years after the first screens went into production. The panels of the present lot are of the first, earlier, type.
The panels were delivered unmounted by the factory and then assembled by the upholsterer, normally into two screens of six panels each; although Verlet also notes the existence of four and five panel screens. Initially the panels were mounted back to back, so that the screen was double-sided, but as time went on, panels began to be mounted on one side only for the sake of economy. The fashion was immediately popular, and more panels were woven in the first half of the 18th century. The six-leaf folding screen at Waddesdon Manor, part of the collection of James A. de Rothschild, has panels woven from designs by Desportes sometime between 1719 and 1739. The designs follow the arrangement of earlier Savonnerie designs in that the decoration is in three tiers.
A number of panels survive today in major public and private collections. Two screens of six panels, given as diplomatic gifts to the royal family of Sweden, are kept at the royal palace in Stockholm. A six-panel screen belongs to the Huntington Collection, San Marino, California, successively from the collections of the Duke of Sutherland and Charles J. Wertheimer; another is kept at the Mobilier National, Paris (GMT 1161) illustrated in Verlet, op.cit., p. 300, fig. 183; one of five leaves is in the collections of the Louvre; a five-leaf screen was sold in Paris and acquired by Seligman in 1927; a four-leaf screen from the collection of the Earl of Caledon at Tyttenhanger Park was sold in London in 1973, and later acquired by the J Paul Getty Museum; with single panels found in the Carnavalet museum, Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Longford Castle, Wiltshire.