15 - Large chest of drawers with latticework marquetry,

Large chest of drawers with latticework marquetry, featuring two drawers, curved sides also in lattice marquetry, the top of Aleppo breccia marble resting on tapered legs ending in arched feet, gilded bronze finials and openwork handles, claw-foot bases, apron, and lock plates (missing parts; gilding redone), with ink marks: No. 2321 and F No. 152; (significant restorations to the veneer and marquetry, re-veneering). Louis XV period. H: 90 cm, W: 151 cm, D: 68 cm This piece comes with its certificate of free circulation. Provenance: Delivered to order on May 8, 1764, by Gilles Joubert under No. 2321 “to be used in the bedroom of His Grace the Count of Artois” at the Château de Fontainebleau, then inventoried in the bedroom of the same apartment in 1786 and 1787. Auction in Lille, April 23, 1989, Auction in Paris, Piasa, June 26, 2001, lot 89, Auction in Paris, Artcurial, December 12, 2012, lot 53. The number 2321, written in ink on the back of the chest of drawers, corresponds to the entry number in the journal of the Garde-meuble de la Couronne for the year 1764. The record of this delivery was originally listed on folio 42, which is now missing from the National Archives. However, No. 2321 appears as a reference in the margin of the 1786 inventory compiled at the Château de Fontainebleau. Thus, on November 1, 1786, the following is recorded: “A tomb-style chest of drawers with two large drawers, inlaid with mosaic and panels of violet wood on a rosewood background, with gilded bronze handles, inlays, and foot pieces, and a top of Aleppo breccia marble, four and a half feet wide.” It is interesting to note the specification “tomb-shaped,” which—contrary to what one might anachronistically assume—is not an error on the part of the inventory’s author, but rather the use of a term that would come to have its current meaning (a three-drawer chest of drawers in which the third drawer is positioned very low, just a few centimeters from the floor) in the 19th century; here, it simply refers to a domed chest of drawers whose solidity evokes that of a sarcophagus. It reappears the following year, in 1787, still in the Count of Artois’s bedroom under number 152, corresponding to the new numbering system of the Garde-meuble de la Couronne. This description is further supplemented by a delivery report by Gilles Joubert from 1764, which can in all likelihood be linked to this chest of drawers and which lists its main characteristics, number of drawers, decoration, dimensions, and type of marble, to which are added the presence of rosettes on either side of the piece—now missing. The Count of Artois’s apartment, located in the former hunting quarters at the Château de Fontainebleau, consisted of eight rooms on the ground floor overlooking the oval courtyard. After the death of the Dauphin, son of Louis XV (1729–1765), in this very apartment where he had been staying for the hunting season, the very young Count of Artois took up residence there until the end of the Ancien Régime. Renovations were carried out beginning in 1773, the year of the Count of Artois’s marriage to Marie-Thérèse of Savoy. Although the contents of the apartment have not been studied, it is worth noting a recently identified bergère chair (auction: Paris, Sotheby’s, December 11, 2025, lot 15) that is part of a set of blue-and-white damask furniture delivered for the inner study and the mezzanine study in 1774. Stylistically, our chest of drawers remains quite emblematic of Joubert’s style around 1760. The latticework marquetry, in particular, is found on the four corner panels of the Louis XV baths at Versailles, which were also delivered in 1764 and are now in a private collection (P. Verlet, *Le Mobilier royal français*, vol. IV, Paris, 1990, pp. 32–34), clearly indicating a preference for mosaic marquetry in the mid-1760s. Regarding the bronze decoration, it is interesting to note that the famous red-lacquered desk at the Metropolitan Museum, delivered by Joubert in 1759 for Louis XV’s private study at Versailles, features the same highly distinctive pull handles with openwork sides, as well as the same panel in the center of the band.