A French Ormolu-Mounted and Japanese Lacquered Writing Table

By Henry Dasson, 1885
The Lacquer Panels, Japan, circa 1870

After the model by Adam Weisweiler, comprising a rectangular three-quartered galleried top with a central square lacquer panel depicting pagodas in a landscape within a border, flanked by rectangular panels of lacquer depicting leaves and branches, above a spring-operated panelled frieze drawer centred by a roundel of a female mask of Medusa and female sphinxes amongst scrolling foliage, on a steel ground flanked by two short drawers applied with ribbon-tied fruiting and floral garlands, on female caryatid supports terminating in spirally-fluted feet joined by a shaped pierced stretcher centred by a pierced basket, inscribed Henry Dasson 1885

29 ½ in (75 cm) high, 31 ¼ in (79.4 cm) wide, 17 ¾ in (43 cm) deep

cf. Christopher Payne, 19th Century European Furniture, p. 135, fig. 330
Daniel Alcouffe, et al., Furniture Collections in the Louvre, vol. 1, 1993, pp.189-191
Jonathan Meyer, Great Exhibitions, London, New York, Philadelphia, Paris 1851-1900, 2006, p. 298, no. J23

This table is based on an original model by Adam Weisweiler (1744-1820) supplied by him to the marchand-mercier Daguerre in 1784 for Marie-Antoinette’s cabinet intérieur at the Château de Saint-Cloud. Empress Eugénie in 1865 acquired the original table from the Prince de Beauvau (d. 1864) and placed it in the salon bleu in the Tuileries where she gave audiences. The table is now in the Musée du Louvre and illustrated by D. Alcouffe, op. cit., p. 289, no. 97. The mounts on the original table were chased and gilded by the doreur François Rémond. This piece is characteristic of Weisweiler’s work and of the refinement of the Louis XVI and Neoclassical style.

Henry Dasson is recorded as having worked in Paris at 106, rue Vieille-du-Temple. Dasson specialised in reproducing a wide range of furniture and objets d’art of high quality in the style of Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI, often directly copies of known pieces. He purchased the firm of the ébéniste Charles Winckelsen upon his death in 1870, and produced an impressive range of pieces for the Paris Expositions from 1878 until 1895. The firm’s output was distinguished particularly by the fine quality of its ormolu mounts. The business continued until 1894, when a sale of remaining stock was held (see D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Mobilier Français du XIX Siècle, Paris, 1984, pp. 146-151). A similar version of this table was exhibited at the Paris Exposition Universelle 1900, made by Réné Lexcellent.