Boiserie from the Hôtel Lauzun

ca. 1770, with one modern panel
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 523
The design of this Neoclassical paneling incorporates fluted pilasters crowned with Corinthian capitals and three sets of double doors that alternate with carved panels. The latter are embellished below with symmetrical arabesques and vases in low relief and with graceful swags at the top, but they all differ slightly from each other. No eighteenth-century provenance has been discovered for this woodwork, but by 1874 it had been installed in the first-floor (American second floor) gallery of the Hôtel de Lauzun, a seventeenth-century residence on the Île Saint-Louis in Paris. The house was then occupied by the baron Jérôme-Frédéric Pichon (1812–1896), a well-known collector and bibliophile. Stripped to its bare oak and stained a dark shade of brown, the paneling lined the walls of his library. With its four large windows overlooking the quay and the river Seine, this room was the setting for eccentric parties at which Pichon entertained literary contemporaries such as Charles Baudelaire and Théophile Gautier. The paneling remained in place until the baron’s grandson, Louis Pichon, acquired the hôtel in 1905. Having a stricter aesthetic sense and a desire to restore the seventeenthcentury appearance of the gallery, he dismantled and sold the boiserie. It arrived at the Museum in 1976. When microscopic analysis revealed little about the original paint below the stain, the woodwork was repainted in a monochrome gray-green distemper to harmonize with the three grisaille overdoors, which have been associated with the paneling but did not originally belong to it. Showing children representing spring, summer, and winter, they are duplicates of the overdoors representing the four seasons painted about 1787 by Piat Joseph Sauvage (1744–1818) for Queen Marie-Antoinette’s dairy at Rambouillet.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Boiserie from the Hôtel Lauzun
  • Date: ca. 1770, with one modern panel
  • Culture: French, Paris
  • Medium: Carved and painted oak
  • Dimensions: H. 323-1/2 x W. 323-1/2 x D. 195-3/4 in. (821.7 x 821.7 x 497.2 cm)
  • Classification: Woodwork
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman Gift, 1976
  • Object Number: 1976.91.1
  • Curatorial Department: European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Audio

仅适用于: English
Cover Image for 2280. Boiserie from the Hôtel Lauzun, Part 1

2280. Boiserie from the Hôtel Lauzun, Part 1

Gallery 523

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讲解员:这个房间内的镶板属于 18 世纪,具体来源不明。我们只知道 19 世纪晚期一间巴黎别墅的图书室曾用过这种镶板。新古典主义镶板有着典型的饰物,例如壁柱和对称的花环等。它有着笔直的线条和严格的比例,仿佛是对连续弯曲、奇形怪状的洛可可元素的公然反抗。

靠墙一字排开的是新古典主义风格的长沙发和座椅。这种正式的座席安排反映出, 在18 世纪,贵族们在这样一间豪华卧室里接待宾客、会见商人,甚至进行正式的招待。

如果您想了解有关拜访女性卧室的描述,请按“PLAY”按钮。

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