Jean-Henri Riesener (German: Johann Heinrich Riesener) (4 July 1734 – 6 January 1806[1]), born in Gladbeck near Essen in Germany, moved to Paris where he apprenticed soon after 1754 with Jean-François Oeben, whose widow he married,[2] and was received master ébéniste in January 1768. The following year he began supplying furniture for the Crown and in July 1774 formally became ébéniste ordinaire du roi,[3] "the greatest Parisian ébéniste of the Louis XVI period."[4] Riesener was responsible for some of the richest examples of furniture in the Louis XVI style, as the French court embarked on furnishing commissions on a luxurious scale that had not been seen since the time of Louis XIV: between 1774 and 1784 he received on average commissions amounting to 100,000 livres per annum.[5]
He and David Roentgen were Marie-Antoinette's favourite cabinet-makers.[6] 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, Biron, as well as rich fermiers-générals.
He used floral and figural marquetry techniques to a great extent, contrasting with refined parquetry 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 Vestier[7] 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 and Martin Carlin.
He completed the Bureau du Roi, which had been started in 1760, under his predecessor Oeben; his name alone appears in the marquetry.[8].
In 1774 he delivered the commode for the bedroom of Louis XVI at Versailles, now in the Royal Collection at Windsor.[9] An even richer commode replaced it the following year (now at the Musée Condé, 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; 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 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.
JEAN HENRI RIESENER (1734-1806), French cabinet-maker of the Louis XVI. period, was born at Gladbach near Cologne. At an early age he went to Paris, where he entered the workshop in the Arsenal of Jean Francois Oeben. When that great master died, Riesener became foreman of the works; two years later he married Mme. Oeben, and in 1768 was admitted "maitremenuisier-ebeniste." His wife died in 1776, and in 1782 he espoused, as his second wife, Anne Grezel, daughter of a bourgeois of Paris. The union was unhappy, and when, under the first Republic, divorce was legalized, the marriage was dissolved. When Riesener contracted his first marriage he possessed little or nothing; his second contract of marriage recited that in cash and in the money due to him by Louis XVI. he was worth more than X20,000, without counting the finished work in hand, bronze models, jewels and personal effects and invested funds. Thus in fifteen years he had accumulateda fortuneamountingin all to about f40,000. By that time there had been conferred upon him the title, formerly enjoyed by Oeben, of "Ebeniste du Roi." He died on the 6th of January 1806, in the Enclos des Jacobins, leaving an only son, Henri Francois (1767-1828), a distinguished portraitpainter of the First Empire. Riesener was unquestionably the greatest of the Louis Seize cabinet-makers. His name is stamped upon the Bureau du Roi in the Louvre, and although the original conception of that master-work was due to Oeben, it cannot be doubted that its consummate finish and perfect achievement must in great measure be attributed to the man who completed it. Occasionally there may, perhaps, be some lack of spontaneity in his forms, but his work is generally at once bold and graceful. His marquetry presents an extraordinary finish; his chiselled bronzes are of the first excellence. He was especially distinguished for his cabinets, in which he employed many European as well as exotic woods. Wreaths and bunches of flowers form the centres of the panels; on the sides are often diaper patterns in quiet colours. Yet despite his distinction as a maker of cabinets his high-water mark was reached in the Bureau du Roi, finished in 1769 and consequently belonging rather to the Louis Quinze than the Louis Seize period, and a not altogether dissimilar cylinder bureau believed to have been made for Stanislas Leszczynski, king of Poland, now in the Wallace Collection. Stanislas died in 1766, but the desk was not completed until February 20, 1769, as appears by the inscription accompanying the maker's signature. Upon its completion it passed into the possession of the French crown and was included in a sale of the royal furniture which took place in Holland. It was purchased by Sir William Hamilton, then British Minister at the Hague, and appears to have passed out of his hands when he left Naples, where it was purchased by Sir Richard Wallace. At Buckingham Palace there is a third bureau on the same lines. These pieces are triumphs of marquetry. They are inlaid with trophies of musical instruments, doves, bouquets and garlands of flowers; the bronze vases and "galleries" are exquisite - they may possibly be the work of Gouthiere, but are more probably from the hands of Duplessis. For several years this great artist appears to have used the models of his master Oeben, but there was a gradual transition to a style more individual, more delicately conceived, with finer but hardly less vigorous lines. By the time he had been working alone for ten years he had completely embraced the Louis Seize manner - he had, perhaps, some responsibility for it. One of the most distinguished of his achievements for the court was the famous flat writing-table now at the Petit Trianon, for which he received only X200. The extent of these royal orders may be gauged from the fact that between 1775 and 1785 Riesener received 500,000 livres from the Garde Meubles, notwithstanding that during the whole of this period Gondouin the architect was the official designer of furniture for the royal palaces. Like so many other artists he was condemned in the end to sacrifice to the false taste of his day, and a certain number of his creations, otherwise delightful, were vitiated by being mounted with panels of Sevres, Wedgwood and other china. The beautiful little secretaire in the Jones collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum suffers seriously by this lapse.
|
<< Riesa |
   | (Metropolitan Museum of Art) Mechanical table for Marie Antoinette at Versailles,1778 - Jean-Henri Riesener: Mechanical table (33.12) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art |
| | (Metropolitan Museum of Art) Drop-front secretary, veneered with ebony and black Japanese lacquer, for Marie Antoinette's ''cabinet intérieur'' at Versailles, 1783 - Jean-Henri Riesener: Secretary (secretaire a abattant) (20.155.11) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art |
| | (Getty Museum) Jean-Henri Riesener - Jean-Henri Riesener (Getty Museum) |
|
|
Wikis
Facts
Map
Search
