French fashion at Petworth
Although the 3rd Earl of Egremont is now best remembered as a major patron of Turner and other British artists, in his youth he had fashionable Francophile tastes. Peter Hughes examines the furniture he acquired at Petworth House, Sussex.
Peter Hughes, Monday, 25th August 2008
The mention of ‘small drawers inside’ and of ‘strong castors’ links this description with a neo-classical desk of about 1780, stamped by François Rübestück, in the White and Gold Room (Fig. 4). Rübestück was, as his name suggests, an immigrant to Paris from the old German Reich. Born in about 1722 in Westphalia, he began his career as a free workman in the faubourg Saint-Antoine, the area to the east of the Bastille in which immigrants and other free workmen could enjoy partial freedom from guild regulations. After about seven years there, Rübestück became a master on 7 May 1766, setting up shop in the rue de la Roquette, which runs north-east from the place de la Bastille, and later moving to the rue de Charenton, which runs south-east from the same place. Although a talented cabinetmaker, Rübestück was intemperate in his habits, leading his wife to demand a legal separation, and he died in poverty in 1785.6
This intemperance is not, seemingly, reflected in his furniture, which does, however, show a considerable change from pieces in the Louis XV to those in the Louis XVI style. The former tend to be agreeably rococo, often with panels of Chinese lacquer, whereas the latter are notable for their severity and rectilinear outlines. These last characteristics are seen on the Petworth desk, which has severely straight legs and strictly rectangular panels and drawer fronts bordered by narrow gilt-bronze mouldings edged with lines of beading. In the centre of the roll-top an oval gilt-bronze frame encloses a count’s coronet above the initials ‘LD’ in marquetry, which might, one day, indicate the original owner. The tier of drawers on top of the desk stands up very high and is not softened by any curved profiles at its corners. The red satiné veneer is enlivened by cross-bandings of the same veneer, while the main panels are also inlaid with bandings forming variants of the Greek key pattern in the corners. The Greek key, like the Vitruvian scroll, was a motive favoured during the early years of French neo-classicism at the end of Louis XV’s reign and its use here, in about 1780, gives the desk, despite its severity, a somewhat transitional character, although to English eyes it would probably still have looked up-to-date in 1807.
The Rübestück desk has in the past been described as coming from the Hamilton Palace sale, a provenance which has also been attributed to an unstamped roll-top desk in the White Library, although neither of the desks can be found in the Hamilton Palace sale catalogue and the Rübestück one has now been linked to a purchase by the 3rd Earl in 1807. The desk in the White Library, which is veneered with satiné and tulipwood, appears to date from around 1770, but has perhaps been fitted with later gilt-bronze mounts in the style of Riesener.7
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