Pair of Anglo-Chinese style amaranth shelves, Paris circa 1765

Rare pair of large shelves of hanging angles in solid amaranth.
Violin-shaped model with six trays with finely scooped out evolutions of a groove on the front.
The double upright borders cut up to date from Anglo-Chinese style geometric reserves *.

Maintenance restorations. (collages)

Parisian work of Louis XV period around 1760-1770.

Dimensions:

Height: 106 cm; Width: 34 cm; Depth: 33 cm



* The Anglo-Chinese style appeared in England following the engravings of Wililam Chambers published in 1757: "Treaty of buildings, furniture, clothes, machines and Chinese utensils".
This fashion is different from the interest shown in oriental pieces in previous decades.
If in the years 1730-1750 the creation of Chinese salons in the residences of the nobility was common, around 1765 it was the creation of Anglo-Chinese gardens that was in fashion.
Many castles adopted this taste in contrast to French gardens.
Chantilly, Amboise, Chanteloup and soon Versailles yielded to this fashion from Great Britain.
The construction of Chanteloup's Chinese Pagoda will be at its peak and one of the best advertisements of this style, the Duke of Choiseul, in disgrace will receive some of the most important characters of the time.
It is to furnish this type of construction that a new style of furniture was born.
Some visionary cabinetmakers and carpenters will produce pieces of this style from 1765-1770.
We can cite rare armchairs by Georges Jacob, notably those created for Le Duc de Penthièvre, the octagonal table bearing the Chanteloup mark and presented like the armchairs at the Louvre museum, the Pierre Garnier library at the Musée des arts décoratifs in Paris and a handful of other pieces that are now part of the largest collections.


Our opinion :

Known in old inventories as "tiered shelves", these small pieces of furniture often accompanied pairs of corner pieces.
These tablets were used to display porcelain from China in the salons of pagodas in “Anglo-Chinese” gardens.
Due to the very short duration of this fashion, the technical prowess necessary for their constructions and the few clients wealthy enough to carry out this type of arrangement these pieces were produced in very small quantities.
Because of their great fragility very few have crossed the centuries and have reached us; as for the Anglo-Chinese style models despite our research, we don't know any others, not even in museums.
This pair is a unique prototype combining aerial forms still Louis XV with English fashion for wood and Asian influences for cut-outs