Boulle at Blenheim: Blenheim Palace's state rooms contain splendid furniture by Andre-Charles Boulle and in his manner, collected by the 9th Duke of Marlborough in the 1890s after his marriage to Consuelo Vanderbilt. In the first of two articles, Peter Hughes discusses these unpublished pieces in detail, and identifies those by Boulle himself

Apollo, Nov, 2005 by Peter Hughes

The state rooms on the south front of the palace named after the 1st Duke of Marlborough's great victory over the armies of Louis XIV contain a fine collection of French furniture, including, ironically, Boulle marquetry pieces from the reign of that very monarch. The furniture was probably acquired by the 9th Duke after his marriage to Consuelo Vanderbilt in 1895, although no documentation survives for its acquisition. It appears to reflect the same taste which led the duke, soon after his accession in 1892, to have the First, Second and Third State Rooms redecorated with white and gold panelling in an early Louis XV style (Fig. 2). According to one recent study of the palace, the perfectionist duke later came to regret his early redecoration of these rooms. (1) Nevertheless, the carved and gilded panelling is of high quality and provides a splendid setting for the Boulle furniture, some of which can be attributed to Andr6-Charles Boulle, while other pieces fall either into the category of furniture by Boulle's contemporaries or into that of later Boulle-revival furniture, either of the late eighteenth century or of the mid-nineteenth century.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

A kneehole writing-desk, about 1680

In the centre of the First State Room is a kneehole writing-desk of about 1680 (Fig. 1), veneered with brass and pewter marquetry on a ground of tortoiseshell backed with red pigment. The desk clearly dates from the late seventeenth century and displays in the four corners of its top (Fig. 3) the arms of Louis-Marie-Victor, second duc d'Aumont (1632-1704). The cypher in the central oval of the top also combines the letters LMV, for the duke's Christian names, beneath a ducal coronet. The duke, who was made a cavalry colonel at the age of ten and a guards captain at the age of sixteen, attained some fame as a soldier, accompanying Louis XIV into the Southern Netherlands as a brigadier, where he played a leading part in the capture of Armentieres, Bergue, Furnes and Courtrai. (2) In later life he served as a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Louis XIV and in 1697 was responsible for directing two balls at court to celebrate the marriage of the duc de Bourgogne. (3) St-Simon depicts the duke as a hard and peremptory personality, who had his elderly mother confined to a convent in 1681 when she wished to marry a younger man, and who finally died of apoplexy on the Wednesday of Holy Week, 1704. (4) The desk clearly belongs in the category of furniture by Boulle's contemporaries, but it is not at present possible to suggest which cabinetmaker might have made it. The cypher in its oval frame is flanked by seated gods and goddesses, Jupiter and Juno at the top and Ceres and Neptune below. The gods and goddesses are overlarge for the spaces they occupy and rest somewhat uncertainly on plinths made up of diaper pattern. This pattern, like those that Andre-Charles Boulle was introducing into Parisian marquetry at this period, is probably derived from a diaper pattern in Japanese lacquer. It is sophisticated in character, but somewhat uncertainly employed. The desk belongs to a type known in France as a bureau brise, on which the desk top is hinged along the centre. The front half of the top folds back (Fig. 4), while the top drawer fronts, which are only simulated ones, fold forward to increase the writing area. The inside of the top and the desk's writing surface are veneered with the same marquetry pattern: three panels of pewter scrolls inlaid on a ground of blondish wood and banded with purplewood, each panel being composed of four smaller pewter frames enclosing a central frame which is either circular or lobed.

[FIGURES 1,3&4 OMITTED]

A mantel clock, about 1690

Close in date to the kneehole desk is a small mantel clock on the chimneypiece of the Green Drawing Room (Fig. 5), veneered with red tortoiseshell and surmounted by a figure of Fame. The movement is by Francois Rabby (1655-c. 1717), the son of an engineer, who married a clockmaker's widow in 1686 and would thus have been received into the clockmakers' guild on advantageous terms as the new husband of the widow of a deceased master. (5) The clock can be dated c. 1690, about the time when Rabby became established at the sign of the Tete Noire on the Place Dauphine, just across the Seine from the Ile de la Cite, the heart of the Parisian clockmaking trade. The case, which would have been made by a cabinet-maker, not by Rabby, is not dissimilar from the cases of London-made clocks of the same period, being a rectangular box with a slightly domed lid. It differs, however, from the case of a similar London-made clock in the greater richness of its gilt-bronze mounts: the scrolling foliage at the bottom of the dial glass, the simulated brocade overhanging the lower edge of the case and the Corinthian pilasters at the corners of the clock. As with other French clocks of this period, the dial is a gilt-bronze disc with the enamel numerals inserted individually, but it has also been inlaid with a decorative ring of tortoiseshell, leading the winding holes to be specially edged with brass reinforcements, to protect the tortoiseshell when the key is inserted.