A Very Important and Palatial Late 19th Century Gilt Bronze Mounted Louis XVI Style Vernis Martin Vitrine by Joseph Zwiener

$95,000 Joseph Zwiener The excellent quality vitrine with an upper section leading down to an egg-and-dart molded surround, above a frieze with scrolling acanthus and grape bronze mounts, the three doors are headed by four exceptional, scantily-clad female canephor figures, the large central and two side doors opening to two shelves, a mirrored bottom, interior lighting and three hidden storage compartments, the three doors with finely decorated panels displaying ‘Vernis Martin’ scenes with people at leisure and landscapes, standing on six fluted, toupie feet. Stamped ‘ZN’ on the back of some bronze mounts. The distinctive canephor figures, finely cast as female caryatids with ringlets in their hair and supporting baskets of fruit upon their heads, is a distinctive and celebrated model unique to Zwiener. Born in Herdon, Germany, in 1849, Joseph Emmanuel Zwiener followed the tradition of some of the best ébnistes of the nineteenth century. He moved to Paris establishing a workshop at 12, rue de la Roquette, between 1880 and 1895. He produced a wide array of the very finest furniture, modelling in his own interpretations of the eighteenth century Louis XV Rococo style, veneered with the highest and finest quality marquetry and ‘Vernis Martin’ panels. Exhibiting at the Exposition Universelle, Paris, in 1889, Zwiener was awarded a gold medal for what the jury reported as ‘dè ses dèbuts à une Exposition Universelle, [il] s’est mi au premier rang par la richesse, la hardinesse, et le fini de ses meubles incrustés de bronze et fort habilment marquetés.’ Zwiener was closely associated with François Linke, and the two houses produced work which, at first glance, is remarkably similar and with occasionally identical mounts. The similarities are made more likely by the fact that the brilliant sculptor, Léon Messagé, worked initially for Zwiener and subsequently, upon Zwiener’s departure for Berlin to work on furniture commissioned by Freidrich Wilhelm II , he was employed in the workshop of François Linke. It appears that Zwiener, unlike Linke, did not sign all his work, although some stamped pieces with his name and/or his “Z” initial are documented. There is some uncertainty between the recorded stamp E. Zwiener and the work of a Julius Zwiener, a Berlin cabinetmaker who made furniture in a very similar style, most notably for the above mentioned Freidrich Wilhelm II. Research suggests however, that the German born Joseph-Emmanuel Zwiener, based in Paris from 1880-1895 and Julius Zwiener, recorded in Berlin after 1895, are probably one and the same. Since the eighteenth century, it had been a common practice for foreign cabinetmakers to gallicise their names whenever they worked in France. Details: Height – 74.5 inches / 189cm Width – 78.5 inches / 199cm Depth – 18.5 inches / 47cm