A late 18th century polished steel and giltbronze campaign gueridon

A rare neoclassical polished steel and giltbronze campaign gueridon
Polished steel, gilded bronze, iron tole, turquin marble
Paris late 18th century

The Turquin marble top is supported by a column-shaped shaft, which rests on an elegant tripod base ending with lion paws, joined by a concave triangular-shaped stretcher, on three small castors in guaiac wood.

This gueridon has three distinctive features. Firstly, it is entirely made of metal, except for the marble top; secondly, it can be disassembled and reassembled at will, making it easy to transport in its compact form; and thirdly, the height of the tray can be adjusted from approximately 69 to 85 cm, through a screw system hidden in the pine-cone sheath in the centre of the base.

The contrast between polished steel and gilded bronze was fashionable in the decorative arts from the last quarter of the 18th century onwards; but such furniture remains a rarity, as steel was then a scarce and difficult material to work with. We have identified, for example, a corpus of very fine consoles in steel and gilded bronze, attributed to the locksmith Deumier[1], made around 1765 after a design by Victor Louis; a steel pedestal table made by the Viennese silversmith Domanek in 1770, offered by the Archduchess Marie-Christine to her sister the Dauphine Marie-Antoinette[2], in 1786 the cabinetmaker Riesener delivered a secretary and table in mother-of-pearl, steel and gilded bronze for the Queen's boudoir at the Château de Fontainebleau, and the journal of the Garde Meuble de la Couronne lists various orders placed with master locksmiths, mainly for beds, prized for their hygienic qualities[3].

The fashion for polished steel furniture continued under the Consulate and Empire. The precious shine of the metal, which imitates silver, its solidity and simplicity, were well suited to the aesthetic and military uses of the time. A whole range of campaign furniture, like our pedestal table, was created for French army officers, the flamboyant heroes of the aftermath of the Revolution. Solid, dismountable, not bulky, luxurious, yet simple in aesthetic, a few examples of this campaign furniture, made around 1800, have come down to us, such as the Emperor's bivouac, a veritable itinerant palace, of which the folding bed by the locksmith Desouches is emblematic, or like this campaign parasol table attributed to Biennais housed at the MAD in Paris.

Our table may have been made by the Deharme factory[4], which also produced other models in polished steel and gilded bronze, but it could also be the work of a skilled craftsman, such as Clément Lossen (†1815), a locksmith established on rue du faubourg Saint-Antoine, distinguished by the Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale in 1811 for "an iron table, in the form of a guéridon table, executed with care"[5].



[1] One supplied to king Augustus III of Pologne in Varsovie, a pair purchased by marquis de Beringhen, a fourth housed in the St Petersburg Hermitage muséum, etc …
[2] Collection comte Niel, gifted to château de Versailles in 1966
[3] Between 1784 and 1787 Jacques-Antoine Courbin, locksmith to the King, supplied four polished steel beds for the princes apartment. A 1792 inventory depicts two of those beds supplied for the Dauphin household : « Pour les garçons de la chambre... deux lits de fer à quatre colonnes à châssis plats de six pieds de long, 6 pieds 6 po de haut et 3 pieds 8 po de large ... ... preisés a 2 422 livres »
[4] Christophe Huchet de Quénetain in les Styles Consulat et Empire, Paris, 2005, pp.50-51 (ill. p.50).
[5] Buletin de Société d’encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale, Dixième Année (N°83) Mai 1811, page 110