Gilt bronze by Caffieri in the Wallace Collection

Magazine Antiques, Jan, 1998 by Peter Hughes

This article is concerned not so much with Philippe Caffieri as with his tenth child and sixth son, Jacques (1678-1755),(1) and, to a lesser extent, with the latter's eldest son, Philippe (1714-1774), both of whom were sculptors and bronze founders. Jacques Caffieri was brought up in the Gobelins, an admirable milieu for training in the decorative arts. In 1614 he was identified as a fondeur-ciseleur; a member of the guild of bronze founders, on his eldest son's baptismal certificate. Jacques Caffieri was evidently highly thought of in the guild, for in 1715 he drew the design for a pall to cover the coffins of deceased masters of the guild during their funerals. The drawing(2) shows Christ on the Gross in the center, flanked by Saints Hubert and Eloi, the guild's patrons, and surrounded by cartouches enclosing typical products of the guild, such as church bells, cannon, lecterns, and chandeliers. The drawing demonstrates that even at the beginning of his career Jacques Caffieri was not simply a bronze founder working to the designs of others, but an original artist in his own right. Beginning in 1736 Jacques Caffieri's name is found in the Comptes des Batiments du Roi for work carried out at Versailles, Fontainebleau, Choisy, and other royal palaces.(3) On April 15, 1739, he is named in the Journal du Garde-Meuble as one of the two craftsmen responsible for the chest of drawers for Louis XV shown in Plate I.(4) The chest was delivered as part of the furnishings of a new bedroom at Versailles, which Louis XV, who found his great-grandfather's state bedroom far too cold, created in 1738 from Louis XIV's billiard room. The bedroom was paneled in white and gold by the sculptor Jacques Verberckt (1704-1771), and the chest was placed under the pier glass opposite the fireplace. The design and manufacture of the chest of drawers was a collaboration, but one in which Caffieri played a leading role. A drawing for the chest attributed to the designer and sculptor Sebastien Antoine Slodtz [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED] depicts the central car-touche as shield-shaped and symmetrical. When executed by Caffieri it became asymmetrical, its left side pierced by curious kidney-shaped apertures [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE I OMITTED]. The drawing also indicates that many of the mounts on the front and legs were to be in the form of rushes or palm leaves and the feet would be volutes. As cast by Caffieri, the mounts on the front are twisted, car-touche-like shapes. He also used his characteristic piercings not just on the central car-touche but also on other elements on the facade and front corner mounts. These piercings, not suggested in the drawing, help to give the mounts the flame-like character remarked upon by the furniture historian Pierre Verlet in his description of the death of Louis XV. The king was brought to his bedroom on April 28, 1774, suffering from smallpox, and was placed not in his bed in the alcove of the bedroom but on a low bed of red damask between the chimney piece and the chest of drawers. As Verlet described it, the bronze mounts of the chest "sous ses yeux fatigues, dansent comme des flammes" (in his tired eyes, dance like flames).(5)

After Louis XV's death, the chest of drawers passed to the duc d'Aumont, the first gentleman of the king's bedchamber, and by 1865 it had been acquired by the fourth marquess of Hertford, the father of Sir Richard Wallace (1818-1890), who lent it to the Musee Retrospectif exhibition held at the Palais de l'Industrie in Paris that year. The photograph in Figure 3 shows that by 1865 the chest had lost its original top of reddish Sarrancolin marble, which would have matched the marble chimney piece still in the king's bedroom at Versailles.

Jacques Caffieri not only produced furniture mounts for Louis XV but also entire gilt-bronze objects. The Cabinet de la Pendule adjoining Louis XV's bedroom at Versailles takes its name from the astronomical clock designed by Claude Simeon Passemant (1702-1769) and made by Dauthiau (w. 1735-1767). Housed in a simple case, it was presented to the king on September 7, 1750, and then provided with a sumptuous gilt-bronze case by Caffieri to the kings order.

Slightly earlier than the clock case, which was delivered in 1753, are the two magnificent gilt-bronze chandeliers shown in Plates II and III. They were both almost certainly given by Louis XV to his eldest daughter, Louise Elisabeth (1727-1759), duchess of Parma, who was known at Versailles as "Madame Infante" as the result of her marriage in 1739 to Philip (1720-1765), the younger son of Philip V of Spain. By the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, Philip and Louise Elisabeth were allotted the duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla in northern Italy. However, she made three extended visits hack to France to see her father. It was probably on her second visit, from September 26, 1752, to September 20, 1753, that the king gave her the chandeliers. When she left Versailles after that visit, Rene Louis de Voyer de Paulmy (1694-1757), marquis d'Argenson, noted acrimoniously that the duchess was accompanied by "a great quantity of waggons loaded with all sorts of old clothes [nippes] given her by the king."(6) The expression "old clothes" may be assumed to be ironic, but it does suggest that the king's presents were objects already in his possession rather than specially commissioned for his daughter. This assumption fits with the date "1751" stamped on the larger chandelier [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 5 OMITTED].