拍品专文
This rare Royal leather cofer was almost certainly delivered by the Menus Plaisirs for the use of the Filles de France, daughters of Louis XV.
Pierre Vente (b. 1722, active until 1792), who conceived the present piece, initially worked under the patronage of the Marchal de Richelieu, and in 1753 became Relieur (bookbinder) for the Menus Plaisirs du Roi and in 1764. Each year he supplied several such coffers to Mesdames, who passed them onto their entourage when they were considered too old. Madame Marie-Adelaide de France (d. 1800), fourth daughter of Louis XV, was herself a noted bibliophile, amassing a library of more than 10,000 volumes, all bound in red morocco leather.
A closely related coffer supplied to one of the daughters of Louis XV, with the same coat-of-arms, from the Musée de Cluny, Paris, previously in the collection of Baron Arthur de Rothschild, was exhibited in ‘Louis XV, un moment de perfection de l’art Français’, Paris, 1974, cat. 551. Another coffer almost identical to this example was sold from the collection of the 5th Earl of Rosebery, Mentmore Towers, Buckinghamshire, Sotheby’s house sale, 1977, lot 109.
Pierre Vente (b. 1722, active until 1792), who conceived the present piece, initially worked under the patronage of the Marchal de Richelieu, and in 1753 became Relieur (bookbinder) for the Menus Plaisirs du Roi and in 1764. Each year he supplied several such coffers to Mesdames, who passed them onto their entourage when they were considered too old. Madame Marie-Adelaide de France (d. 1800), fourth daughter of Louis XV, was herself a noted bibliophile, amassing a library of more than 10,000 volumes, all bound in red morocco leather.
A closely related coffer supplied to one of the daughters of Louis XV, with the same coat-of-arms, from the Musée de Cluny, Paris, previously in the collection of Baron Arthur de Rothschild, was exhibited in ‘Louis XV, un moment de perfection de l’art Français’, Paris, 1974, cat. 551. Another coffer almost identical to this example was sold from the collection of the 5th Earl of Rosebery, Mentmore Towers, Buckinghamshire, Sotheby’s house sale, 1977, lot 109.