WEISWEILER, Adam - b. 1744 Neuwied, d. 1820 Paris - WGA

WEISWEILER, Adam

(b. 1744 Neuwied, d. 1820 Paris)

German cabinetmaker. He was a Paris-based cabinetmaker whose neoclassical-style furniture, often set with lacquer or decorative panels, found favour at several European royals courts, including George IV’s (1762-1830).

Born in Germany in 1744, Weisweiler emigrated to Paris after his training and there became a maître-ébéniste (master cabinetmaker) in 1778. He was employed by the marchand-mercier (dealer) Dominique Daguerre, who sold his work to patrons across Europe, including Marie-Antoinette and the King of Naples. George, Prince of Wales (later George IV) acquired several pieces of Weisweiler’s furniture for Carlton House, his private residence, in the late 1780s.

Weisweiler occasionally combined his restrained, neoclassical-style furniture with more exuberant pietre dure panels or Sèvres porcelain plaques. Pietre dure (literally ‘hard stones’) is a technique perfected in late sixteenth-century Florence, Rome and Prague, in which coloured stones are inset to create two- or three-dimensional images.

Weisweiler survived the French Revolution and supplied furniture to the Bonaparte family before his death in Paris in 1820.

Cabinet

The cabinet, rectangular in shape, has incurving splayed sides lined in glass and divided by a shelf. It is supported on four fluted tulipwood peg-top feet. The single door in the front is flanked by ebony panels fitted with matching candelabrum mounts. The frieze on the front and ends is chased with foliate arabesques, some scrolls terminating in eagle heads, incorporating clusters of grapes and birds. The arabesques are centred at the front on a bacchic head flanked by cornucopias and goats and at either end on a musical trophy between two addorsed putto satyrs. The S�vres porcelain plaque fitted to the door is painted in polychrome with a basket of flowers.

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Commode (commode à vantaux)

This commode was purchased by Ferdinand IV (1751–1825), king of Naples, and was placed in his study at the royal palace of Caserta. Mounted with Japanese lacquer and exquisite gilt bronze the commode was the work of Adam Weisweiler, who stamped the back.

The drawers of the breakfront commode, known as a commode à vantaux during the eighteenth century, are enclosed behind a double-hinged and bolted folding door to the right, and a single door to the left. The sculptural half-figure corner mounts and those of the frieze, which include scrolling acanthus and ivy leaves, goats, and playful infant fauns, add a richness to this furniture. Because of their outstanding quality they have been attributed to the bronze worker Pierre Gouthi�re (1732–1813) or the bronze gilder, caster, and chaser Fran�ois R�mond (c. 1747-1812).

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Work table

The table is veneered with satinwood, tulipwood, ebony and Wedgwood plaques which would have been imported from England. It was in the Tuileries in 1807 in the Empress Josephine’s apartments.

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