JACQUES-LAURENT COSSON (Paris, 1737 - 1812 ; maître en 1765)

LADY'S SECRETARY ORNATED WITH A SÈVRES PLATE Painted decoration by André-Vincent Vieillard (1717-1790) Louis XVI period - Paris, ca. 1770 Lemonwood, light wood, ebony and boxwood fillets; painted Sèvre soft porcelain; gilt bronze; white marble Furniture presented in its old condition; transformations in the cartonnier H. 132 cm, W. 58 cm, D. 33,5 cm Stamped Our secretary, crowned with a marble top girdled with a discontinuous gallery, rests on four toupee feet. The upper part, enhanced by a terrace in doucine, opens to a flap centered with a painted Sèvres porcelain plate, framed by a marquetry of foliage and a checkerboard border. The lower part, with two leaves inlaid with a trellis with quatrefoils, is enriched with gilded bronzes. The belt is decorated with a leafy openwork frieze. And two columns with baluster shafts have been placed at the corners. Following the example of Simon-Philippe Poirier (circa 1720-1785), our cabinetmaker Jacques-Laurent Cosson has decorated his secretary with a Sèvres porcelain plate representing a peasant scene. The polychrome decoration is attributed to the painter on ceramics André-Vincent Vieillard, active at the Manufacture de Sèvres from 1756. He may have been inspired by a composition by Téniers to depict this farmer feeding her chickens and turkey in the barnyard where two children are playing beside her. The central cartel, bordered by a frieze of motifs, stands out on a new blue background decorated with friezes of leafy posts, garlands, fillets and rosettes on the spandrels. Our secretary is a good example of the research carried out by Jacques-Laurent Cosson to seduce a clientele as fond of novelties as were Madame de Pompadour, Madame du Barry, the Duke of Choiseul or the Count of Caylus. He is also known for a pair of cabinets decorated with Sèvres plates in imitation of Wedgwood, from the former collection of Viscount Clifden (fig. 1).