Jean Henri Riesener
Encyclopedia
Jean-Henri Riesener (4 July 1734 – 6 January 1806) was the French royal ébéniste
Ébéniste
Ébéniste is the French word for a cabinetmaker, whereas in French menuisier denotes a woodcarver or chairmaker. The English equivalent for "ébéniste," "ebonist," is never commonly used. Originally, an ébéniste was one who worked with ebony, a favoured luxury wood for mid-seventeenth century...

, working in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, whose work exemplified the early neoclassical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...

 Louis XVI
Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....

 style".

Riesener was born in Gladbeck
Gladbeck
Gladbeck is a city in the district of Recklinghausen in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.The name ´Gladbeck´ evolves from Low German, originally spoken in the area around Gladbeck. ´Glad´ means something like gleamy and ´beck´ means about brook. However, the brook Gladbeck flows under the ground...

, Westphalia
Westphalia
Westphalia is a region in Germany, centred on the cities of Arnsberg, Bielefeld, Dortmund, Minden and Münster.Westphalia is roughly the region between the rivers Rhine and Weser, located north and south of the Ruhr River. No exact definition of borders can be given, because the name "Westphalia"...

, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, moved to Paris where he apprenticed soon after 1754 with Jean-François Oeben
Jean-François Oeben
Jean-François Oeben, or Johann Franz Oeben was a French cabinetmaker whose career was spent in Paris. He is the maternal grandfather of the painter Eugène Delacroix....

, whose widow he married; he was received master ébéniste
Ébéniste
Ébéniste is the French word for a cabinetmaker, whereas in French menuisier denotes a woodcarver or chairmaker. The English equivalent for "ébéniste," "ebonist," is never commonly used. Originally, an ébéniste was one who worked with ebony, a favoured luxury wood for mid-seventeenth century...

 in January 1768. The following year he began supplying furniture for the Crown and in July 1774 formally became ébéniste ordinaire du roi, "the greatest Parisian ébéniste of the Louis XVI
Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....

 period." Riesener was responsible for some of the richest examples of furniture
Furniture
Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...

 in the Louis XVI
Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....

 style, as the French court embarked on furnishing commissions on a luxurious scale that had not been seen since the time of Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

: between 1774 and 1784 he received on average commissions amounting to 100,000 livres per annum.

He and David Roentgen were Marie-Antoinette's favourite cabinet-makers. Besides commissions directly to the Garde-Meuble he delivered case furniture for the comte and comtesse de Provence, the comte d'Artois, Mesdames the king's aunts, and the ducs de Penthièvre, de la Rochefoucauld, Choiseul-Praslin
César Gabriel de Choiseul
César Gabriel de Choiseul, duc de Praslin was a French officer, diplomat and statesman.On 30 April 1732, he was married with Anne Marie de Champagne de Villaines de la Suze....

, Biron, as well as rich fermiers-générals.

He used floral and figural marquetry
Marquetry
Marquetry is the art and craft of applying pieces of veneer to a structure to form decorative patterns, designs or pictures. The technique may be applied to case furniture or even seat furniture, to decorative small objects with smooth, veneerable surfaces or to freestanding pictorial panels...

 techniques to a great extent, contrasting with refined parquetry
Parquetry
Parquetry is a geometric mosaic of wood pieces used for decorative effect. The two main uses of parquetry are as veneer patterns on furniture and block patterns for flooring. Parquet patterns are entirely geometrical and angular—squares, triangles, lozenges. The most popular parquet flooring...

 and trelliswork grounds, in addition to gilt-bronze mounts. His carcases were more finely finished than those of many of his Parisian contemporaries, and he attempted to disguise the screwheads that attached his mounts with overhanging details of foliage. It seems likely that as a royal craftsman he was able to circumvent guild restrictions and produice his own gilt-bronze mounts: Riesener's princely portrait by Antoine Vestier
Antoine Vestier
Antoine Vestier was a French miniaturist and painter of portraits, born at Avallon in Burgundy, who trained in the atelier of Jean-Baptiste Pierre...

 shows the cabinet-maker at one of his richly-mounted tables, with drawings for gilt-bronze mounts. Many of his pieces featured complicated mechanisms that raised or lowered table-tops or angled reading stands. Through his wife he was related to other master craftsmen in Paris, notably the ébénistes Roger Vandercruse Lacroix
Roger Vandercruse Lacroix
Roger Vandercruse Lacroix , often known as Roger Vandercruse, was a Parisian ébéniste whose highly refined furniture spans the rococo and the early neoclassical styles....

 and Martin Carlin
Martin Carlin
Martin Carlin was a Parisian ébéniste, born at Freiburg, who was received master at Paris in 1766.Carlin worked at first in the shop of Jean-François Oeben, whose sister he married. He set up independently in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, an unfashionable quarter of Paris, where few of his wealthy...

.

He completed the Bureau du Roi
Bureau du Roi
The Bureau du Roi , also known as Louis XV's roll-top secretary , is the richly ornamented royal Cylinder desk whose construction was done at the end of Louis XV reign....

, which had been started in 1760, under his predecessor Oeben; his name alone appears in the marquetry.

In 1774 he delivered the commode
Commode
A commode, commode with legs, or commode on legs is any of several pieces of furniture. The word commode comes from the French word for "convenient" or "suitable", which in turn comes from the Latin adjective commodus, with similar meanings.Originally, in French furniture, a commode introduced...

 for the bedroom of Louis XVI at Versailles
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles , or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles....

, now in the Royal Collection at Windsor. An even richer commode replaced it the following year (now at the Musée Condé
Château de Chantilly
The Château de Chantilly is a historic château located in the town of Chantilly, France. It comprises two attached buildings; the Grand Château, destroyed during the French Revolution and rebuilt in the 1870s, and the Petit Château which was built around 1560 for Anne de Montmorency...

, Chantilly).

The drop-front secretary (sécretaire à abattant) initially designed by Oeben, or by Riesener in Oeben's workshop, presents a vertical rectangle of superposed panels and a frieze, on short legs. The upper panel drops down to provide a writing surface, revealing a fitted interior.

From 1784, with France near bankruptcy, the pace of court commissions dropped radically; Thierry de Ville d'Avray succeeded Pierre-Elizabeth de Fontanieu at the Garde-Meuble le la Couronne and turned for necessary economy to less expensive suppliers, such as Guillaume Beneman
Guillaume Beneman
Guillaume Beneman or Benneman was a prominent Parisian ébéniste, one of several of German extraction, working in the early neoclassical Louis XVI style, which was already fully developed when he arrived in Paris...

; Riesener's last pieces for the court featured sober but richly-figured West Indian mahogany veneers and more restrained use of gilt-bronze mounts. Queen Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....

 continued to favour Riesener through the 1780s

With the French Revolution, Riesener was retained by the Directory, and sent in 1794 to Versailles to remove the "insignia of feudality" from furniture he had recently made: royal cyphers and fleurs-de-lys were replaced with innocuous panels. During the French revolutionary sales he ruined himself by buying back furniture that was being sold at derisory prices. When he attempted to resell his accumulated stock, tastes had changed and the old clientele dispersed or dead. He retired in 1801 and died in comparative poverty in Paris.

Collection

After the Revolutionary Sales, UK collectors had bought back to their stately homes significantly numbers of French royal furniture (mobilier royale), which today forms the basis of the great collections still remaining in the UK. Towards the end of the industrial age in the UK alongwith the advent of the gilded age in USA, until the agricultural depression of the 1920s, large numbers of works, predominately in UK collections were auctioned off and made their passage to American collectors. Still to this date UK collections are especially rich in the works of French royal furniture and decorative arts and remain agruably the greatest repository of the works of the 17th and 18th century.
  • France
  • UK
  • USA

  • 7 pieces
  • 33 pieces
  • 4 pieces

Writing-table
  • Bureau, 1780, Waddesdon Manor
    Waddesdon Manor
    Waddesdon Manor is a country house in the village of Waddesdon, in Buckinghamshire, England. The house was built in the Neo-Renaissance style of a French château between 1874 and 1889 for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild . Since this was the preferred style of the Rothschilds it became also known as...

    , UK
  • Bureau, 1783, Musée du Louvre, France
    France
    The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

  • Bureau, 1780-85, Musée du Louvre, France
    France
    The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...



Bureau à cylindre
  • Bureau à cylindre (Bureau du roi), c. 1760-69, delivered to the 'Cabinet intérieur' for Louis XV at Versailles, Palace of Versailles, France
    France
    The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

  • Bureau à cylindre, c. 1774, delivered to the comte d'Orsay for the Hôtel d'Orsay, The Wallace Collection, UK
  • Bureau à cylindre, c. 1775, Royal Collection
    Royal Collection
    The Royal Collection is the art collection of the British Royal Family. It is property of the monarch as sovereign, but is held in trust for her successors and the nation. It contains over 7,000 paintings, 40,000 watercolours and drawings, and about 150,000 old master prints, as well as historical...

    , UK
  • Bureau à cylindre, c. 1785, The Wallace Collection, UK
  • Bureau à cylindre, c. 1773, delivered to Madame Adelaide, daughter of Louis XV, Versailles, Waddesdon Manor
    Waddesdon Manor
    Waddesdon Manor is a country house in the village of Waddesdon, in Buckinghamshire, England. The house was built in the Neo-Renaissance style of a French château between 1874 and 1889 for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild . Since this was the preferred style of the Rothschilds it became also known as...

    , UK
  • Bureau à cylindre, 1774, delivered to the comte de Provence, Waddesdon Manor
    Waddesdon Manor
    Waddesdon Manor is a country house in the village of Waddesdon, in Buckinghamshire, England. The house was built in the Neo-Renaissance style of a French château between 1874 and 1889 for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild . Since this was the preferred style of the Rothschilds it became also known as...

    , UK
  • Bureau à cylindre, 1774, Woburn Abbey
    Woburn Abbey
    Woburn Abbey , near Woburn, Bedfordshire, England, is a country house, the seat of the Duke of Bedford and the location of the Woburn Safari Park.- Pre-20th century :...

    , UK
  • Bureau à cylindre, 1784, delivered to Marie-Antoinette's 'Cabinet intérieur' at the palais des Tuileries, Musée du Louvre, France
    France
    The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

  • Bureau à cylindre, c. 1775/1785, National Gallery of Art
    National Gallery of Art
    The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...

    , USA


Cabinet
  • Jewel-cabinet, delivered to the Comtesse de Provence, c. 1787, Royal Collection
    Royal Collection
    The Royal Collection is the art collection of the British Royal Family. It is property of the monarch as sovereign, but is held in trust for her successors and the nation. It contains over 7,000 paintings, 40,000 watercolours and drawings, and about 150,000 old master prints, as well as historical...

    , UK


Commode
  • Commode, c. 1774, delivered to Louis XVI's "Chambre du Roi" at Versailles, Royal Collection
    Royal Collection
    The Royal Collection is the art collection of the British Royal Family. It is property of the monarch as sovereign, but is held in trust for her successors and the nation. It contains over 7,000 paintings, 40,000 watercolours and drawings, and about 150,000 old master prints, as well as historical...

    , UK
  • Commode, c. 1780, delivered to Marie-Antoinette's cabinet intérieur de la reine at Versailles, The Wallace Collection, UK
  • Commode, c. 1782, delivered to Marie-Antoinette for Chateau de Marly, The Wallace Collection, UK
  • Commode, 1782, delivered to Marie-Antoinette's 'Cabinet' at the Chateau de Marly, Musée du Louvre, France
    France
    The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

  • Commode, 1776, delivered for the bedroom of the comtesse de Provence, sister-in-law of Louis XIV, Versailles, Waddesdon Manor
    Waddesdon Manor
    Waddesdon Manor is a country house in the village of Waddesdon, in Buckinghamshire, England. The house was built in the Neo-Renaissance style of a French château between 1874 and 1889 for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild . Since this was the preferred style of the Rothschilds it became also known as...

    , UK
  • Commode, 1778, delivered for the King's sister, Madame Elisabeth, Versailles, Waddesdon Manor
    Waddesdon Manor
    Waddesdon Manor is a country house in the village of Waddesdon, in Buckinghamshire, England. The house was built in the Neo-Renaissance style of a French château between 1874 and 1889 for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild . Since this was the preferred style of the Rothschilds it became also known as...

    , UK
  • Commode, c. 1775-80, V&A, UK
  • Commode, Dalmeny House
    Dalmeny House
    Dalmeny House is a Gothic revival mansion located in an estate close to Dalmeny on the Firth of Forth, to the north-west of Edinburgh, Scotland. It was designed by William Wilkins, and completed in 1817.Dalmeny House is the home of the Earl and Countess of Rosebery. The house was the first in...

    , UK


Encoignure
  • Paire de encoignure, delivered to Louis XVI's "Chambre du Roi" at Versailles, c. 1774, Royal Collection
    Royal Collection
    The Royal Collection is the art collection of the British Royal Family. It is property of the monarch as sovereign, but is held in trust for her successors and the nation. It contains over 7,000 paintings, 40,000 watercolours and drawings, and about 150,000 old master prints, as well as historical...

    , UK
  • Encoignure, delivered to Marie-Antoinette's cabinet intérieur at Versailles, c. 1783, The Wallace Collection, UK
  • Encoignure, supplied to Monsieur Fontanieu for his Hotel du Garde Meuble, Place Louis XV, 1773, V&A, UK


Jewel coffer et secrétaire
  • Jewel coffer et secrétaire, 1775-80, V&A, UK


Marquetry Panel
  • Panel, as part of a table-top delivered to Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon at Versailles (Riesener's largest and finest marquetry marquetry execution), 1776, V&A, UK


Petit table
  • Petit table, c. 1785, Royal Collection
    Royal Collection
    The Royal Collection is the art collection of the British Royal Family. It is property of the monarch as sovereign, but is held in trust for her successors and the nation. It contains over 7,000 paintings, 40,000 watercolours and drawings, and about 150,000 old master prints, as well as historical...

    , UK
  • Petit table, 1777, delivered to Marie-Antoinette for the use of Louis XVI at the Petit Triannon, Versailles, Waddesdon Manor
    Waddesdon Manor
    Waddesdon Manor is a country house in the village of Waddesdon, in Buckinghamshire, England. The house was built in the Neo-Renaissance style of a French château between 1874 and 1889 for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild . Since this was the preferred style of the Rothschilds it became also known as...

    , UK
  • Petit table, c. 1780, perhaps the table delivered for Marie-Antoinette at the Petit Triannon, Versailles, Waddesdon Manor
    Waddesdon Manor
    Waddesdon Manor is a country house in the village of Waddesdon, in Buckinghamshire, England. The house was built in the Neo-Renaissance style of a French château between 1874 and 1889 for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild . Since this was the preferred style of the Rothschilds it became also known as...

    , UK
  • Petit table, delivered to the 'cabinet intérieur' for Marie Antoinette at Versailles, Scone Palace
    Scone Palace
    Scone Palace is a Category A listed historic house at Scone, Perthshire, Scotland. It was constructed in 1808 for the Earls of Mansfield by William Atkinson...

    , UK


Secrétaire
  • Secrétaire, c. 1780-4, The Wallace Collection, UK


Secrétaire à abattant
  • Secrétaire à abattant, delivered to Marie-Antoinette's cabinet intérieur at Versailles, c. 1780, The Wallace Collection, UK
  • Secrétaire à abattant, delivered to Marie-Antoinette's cabinet intérieur at Versailles, c. 1783, The Wallace Collection, UK
  • Secrétaire à abattant, delivered to Marie-Antoinette's Petit Triannon at Versailles, c. 1783, The Wallace Collection, UK
  • Secrétaire à abattant, c. 1780-4, The Wallace Collection, UK
  • Secrétaire à abattant, c. 1780s, Dalmeny House
    Dalmeny House
    Dalmeny House is a Gothic revival mansion located in an estate close to Dalmeny on the Firth of Forth, to the north-west of Edinburgh, Scotland. It was designed by William Wilkins, and completed in 1817.Dalmeny House is the home of the Earl and Countess of Rosebery. The house was the first in...

    , UK
  • Secrétaire à abattant, delivered to Louis XVI's "cabinet" at the Petit Trianon, 1777, Waddesdon Manor
    Waddesdon Manor
    Waddesdon Manor is a country house in the village of Waddesdon, in Buckinghamshire, England. The house was built in the Neo-Renaissance style of a French château between 1874 and 1889 for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild . Since this was the preferred style of the Rothschilds it became also known as...

    , UK
  • Secrétaire à abattant, 1783, delivered (with a commode and encoignure) to the 'cabinet intérieur' for Marie Antoinette at Versailles, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA
  • Secrétaire à abattant, c. 1775, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire
    Musée d'Art et d'Histoire (Geneva)
    The Musée d’Art et d’Histoire is the largest art museum in Geneva, Switzerland.-The building:The museum is located in Les Tranchées, in the city centre, on the site of the former fortification ring. It was built by the architect Marc Camoletti between 1903 and 1910, and financed by a bequest from...

    , Switzerland
    Switzerland
    Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

  • Secrétaire à abattant, called the Guerault secrétaire, c. 1770-75, (sold in Paris, 21-22 March, 1935)
  • Secrétaire à abattant, called the Fontanieu secrétaire, c. 1771, (sold Christie's, 5th December, 1974)
  • Secrétaire à abattant, called the Bergsten secrétaire, c. 1770-75, (sold Christie's, 23rd June, 1999)
  • Secrétaire à abattant, called the Wernher secrétaire, c. 1763-68, (sold Christie's, 5th July, 2000)


Table à écrire
  • Table à écrire, c. 1770s, delivered to Marie-Antoinette for the Petit Trianon, Palace of Versailles, France
    France
    The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

  • Table à écrire, c. 1780, National Gallery of Art
    National Gallery of Art
    The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...

    , USA
  • Table à écrire, c. 1784, delivered to Marie-Antoinette for the palais des Tuileries, National Gallery of Art
    National Gallery of Art
    The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...

    , USA


Table de toilette
  • Table de toilette, c. 1780-4, The Wallace Collection, UK


Toilet et bureau
  • Toilet et bureau, c. 1780-4, The Wallace Collection, UK

External links


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