"Braquenie: Une Histoire Du Decor Francais" Deburaux 2005 Sotheby's Paris

[145] pp.

377 lots

Sotheby's Paris

2005

10 3/4" x 8 1/4"

Fine

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Deburaux et Associés, Sotheby's France

A HISTORY OF FRENCH DÉCOR

SALE IN PARIS

OCTOBER 27, 2005

Maître Deburaux, judicial auctioneer, assisted by Sotheby's, expert, will sell at the Charpentier gallery a set of tapestries, gouache and watercolour projects, tapestry cartoons, seat upholstery, carpets and furniture from the Braquenié house. Around 300 lots, sold without reserve price, will illustrate a history of French décor and bear rich witness to the taste and comfort of the late nineteenth century, adopted by castles and grand residences around the world.

The Braquenié House

Founded at the beginning of the nineteenth century, a time when France was making its mark in the field of decorative arts, Braquenié has created its own universe harmonizing carpets and fabrics in the most prestigious settings.

In 1821, Pierre-Antoine Demy and his wife took over the family business and set up shop on rue Vivienne in Paris where they gathered the most beautiful collections of carpets and tapestries in the capital. The house quickly became successful and, in 1830, it was appointed by King Louis-Philippe as 'merchant of silk fabrics to the king'. Ten years later, she acquired the 'Paris workshop' in Aubusson and began a policy of creating exclusive models that would make the house famous.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, in association with Alexandre Braquenié in the meantime, the house offered all the qualities to which the flourishing company succumbed: the Empress Eugenie and Napoleon III, the Duke Pozzo di Borgo, the Marquise de la Païva or the Rothschild family became loyal customers. Official commissions poured in: a carpet was woven for the Luxembourg Palace, another for Notre-Dame de Paris or the Vatican. Fame went beyond the borders of France and the courts of Spain, Italy, Russia and the Sultan Said Pasha of Egypt obtained their supplies from Braquenié. Prestigious commissions remained at the heart of the activity during the twentieth century, such as that of the liner Normandie or replicas of historical sets, notably for the Grand Trianon.

Since its creation, Braquenié has always combined tradition and innovation, combining re-editions of forgotten models with orders from new designers. She regularly associates her production with contemporary artists, the most famous of which were Picart-Le-Doux, Saint-Saëns and Lurçat.

In 1991, the Pierre Frey company bought this living cultural heritage. Respectful of the glorious past of this old house, it retains its soul while adapting it to the twenty-first century.

In 2003, Patrick Frey created a department responsible for gathering and reorganising all the archives relating to the history of the house. Its mission is to preserve this rich heritage of creation and various acquisitions over time, to offer new sources of inspiration to the group's style offices and to offer customers and decorators a tailor-made service. Today, Braquenié focuses its activity on textile trades (silks, printed and weaving) and custom-made carpets; she entrusted Sotheby's with the dispersal of part of her documentation relating to the tapestry. Braquenié chose to treasure his archives related to textiles and wanted to continue to enrich them.

The Braquenie Collection

This collection brings together examples of tapestries produced or acquired by the Braquenié house (petit point, gros point, flat stitch, canvas and tapestry) since the seventeenth century. Some, accompanied by the initial projects, will illustrate the different stages of the creation of a model, from the cardboard to the textile version and the putting the model into perspective in a setting. Allegory of the Twelve Months of the Year after Claude II Audran, Antoine Watteau and Alexandre-François Desportes is a wonderful example. These twelve paintings, estimated at €15,000 to €20,000, are followed by a gouache and watercolour on paper representing the decoration for which these panels were intended (estimate: €100/150).

Among the tapestry cartoons, a pair of painted canvases from the French school of the twentieth century offers an elegant composition of trophies of arms and garlands of flowers (estimate: €600/800).

The sale will offer a wide selection of tapestries dating from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. The oldest piece, woven in Flanders in the mid-17th century, depicts Cleopatra seated in an interior and accompanied by two servants, letting a snake wrap around her left arm (estimate: €8,000/€12,000). La Pêche, a tapestry made after a cartoon by Huet, shows a gallant scene in the style of the eighteenth century (estimate: €1,000/1,500). Illustrating the part devoted to contemporary creation, a third entitled Marine Universe was produced in Aubusson in 1958 after the cartoon by Alain Hieronimus, a French illustrator contemporary of Jean Lurçat (estimate: €800/1,200).

A series of four panels in flat-stitch tapestry in the style of the eighteenth century is decorated with musical trophies suspended from garlands above voluminous floral bouquets on a cream and red background (estimate: €5,000/8,000).

Among the carpets, several Aubusson models will arouse the interest of enthusiasts, including a large Louis XVI style flat-stitched carpet decorated with Athenian women decorated with flowers on a cream background (estimate: €7,000/10,000). A model in Savonnerie stitch shows a composition in the taste of the eighteenth century: a central medallion with floral motifs in a surround of garlands of flowers on a black background is framed by a frieze with geometric motifs (285x390 cm, estimate: €7,000/€10,000)

The sale will offer many seat upholstery, including a canvas in the style of the second half of the seventeenth century, decorated with pomegranates, large leaves, flowers and stylised fruit (estimate of the lot including several pieces: €1,200/€1,800). A Beauvais flat-stitch tapestry decorated with a cassolette from which a bouquet of flowers emerges is a fine example of the trimmings in vogue in the eighteenth century (estimate: €500/800).

The sale will include a few pieces of furniture, including a three-leaf carpet screen called the Savonnerie in the Louis XV style. Each leaf is decorated with birds resting on flowering bushes (estimate: €6,000/8,000). A rectangular bench in gilded wood in the Louis XVI style carved with crosses and rosettes, covered with a flat-stitch tapestry decorated with a dog in a medallion (estimate: €1,000/1,500)