In 1701, André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732) was paid for seven tables he delivered to the Château de la Ménagerie, located in the park of Versailles, which had been recently renovated by the architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1646–1708). These pieces of furniture were paid for by the Bâtiments du Roi, part of the king’s household responsible for buildings, but from thereon do not appear in any inventories drawn up by the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne, the administration in charge of the furnishing of the royal palaces.
After the death of Louis XIV in 1715, the Garde-Meuble became responsible for the management of royal furniture. As a result, the Boulle tables reappear in a general inventory made in 1718.
In 1985, the art historian Th.H. Lunsingh Scheurleer established a link between the payment to Boulle in 1701 and four pieces of furniture included in the 1718 inventory. Several years later, Jean-Nérée Ronfort proved that Lunsingh Scheurleer’s theory was correct, as he found three of these tables were inventoried in the Ménagerie in 1751.
He also proposed that the placement of the Boulle tables can be seen in a floorplan of the château, dated around 1700. It is, however, also possible that this plan was merely a project by the architect Mansart, in which he included the furniture intended for the building after its completion.
The three pieces located in the Ménagerie in 1751 were described as being decorated with ‘marqueterie Boulle’. We could suppose that the four others paid in 1701 were decorated in the same manner, but no other pieces from the payment can be matched with descriptions in the inventory. The first table we can identify was inventoried under the number 725:
Une petite table de marqueterie de cuivre et d’écaille tortüe, arondie par le devant, représentant un enfant sur un dauphin apuié contre une ancre et tenant d’une main un trident et de l’autre une pique. Le pied à trois consolles de même marqueterie ornées par le haut d’une tête de bellier de relief de cuivre doré, longue sur le derrière de vingt-deux pouces [0,567] et large au milieu de treize pouces [0,351].
[A small table in copper and turtleshell marquetry, rounded at the front, representing a child on a dolphin leaning against an anchor and holding a trident in one hand and a pike in the other. The foot has three consoles of the same marquetry, decorated at the top with a relief of gilded copper showing a bull’s head, twenty-two inches in length at the back and thirteen inches wide in the middle.]
Already in the inventory from 1751, this table was declared as ‘toute brisée’ (completely broken) and it disappeared from later inventories. Another table with rams’ heads made for the Ménagerie was reproduced in one of the engravings Boulle published around 1708, but it has only two stretchers instead of the three mentioned in the corresponding table in the inventory. The pattern of the marquetery is not identified in the description. The model was not unique to the royal family, as an identical table was sold from the esteemed collection of Pierre-Louis-Paul Randon de Boisset in 1777.
The second table in the inventory (number 726) that we can identify as coming from the Ménagerie was described as follows:
Une autre petite table quarrée longue de lad. marqueterie de cuivre et d’écaille, représentant dans le milieu un amour sur une escarpolette balancée par deux autres amours, et un berger joüant de la musette, le reste remply de figures et animaux grotesques et ornements de même marqueterie. Longue de deux pieds huit pouces [0,864] sur quinze pouces de large [0,405].
[Another small, long square table of the said marquetry of copper and turtleshell, representing in the middle a cupid on a swing balanced by two other cupids, and a shepherd playing the bagpipes, the rest filled with grotesque figures and animals and ornaments of the same marquetry. Two feet eight inches long by fifteen inches wide.]
It was inventoried in the Château de Meudon during the 18th century, but we cannot say with certainty if it was made for the Menagerie and later moved to Meudon, or whether it was always intended for the château. The pattern of the marquetery used on the table’s top seems to be a detail from a drawing produced by Boulle’s workshop. It has been suggested that a pair of tables kept in Bowhill House could be of the same design as the Ménagerie table, but they are slightly longer and deeper.
The following number (727) comprised of two pieces:
Deux petites tables aussi de marqueterie d’écaille de tortüe et de cuivre doré, en angle sur le derrière et arondies par devant, faites pour mettre dans un coin, représentant des rinceaux et divers instruments de musique, portées sur leurs pieds de lad. marqueterie, assemblées par un marchepied en triangle, large de dix sept pouces [0,459] sur vingt de profondeur [0,540].
[Two small tables also in marquetry of turtleshell and gilded copper, angled at the back and rounded at the front, made to be put in a corner, representing foliage and various musical instruments, carried on their marquetry legs and assembled by a triangular stretcher, seventeen inches in length and twenty in depth.]
These tables were inventoried as ‘guéridons’ (small tables) until they were sold during the French Revolution. Like the table numbered 725, this model was not unique to the royal Garde-Meuble, as an identical pair was sold with the Randon de Boisset collection. Several other tables of this model and size are recorded. The pair in the Victoria and Albert Museum could be identical to the Ménagerie ones, even if some scholars reject this hypothesis because they are in contre-partie marquetry rather than première-partie.
We can see from the 1718 inventory, however, that the ‘marqueterie Boulle’ is sometimes described with the turtleshell given first, while in other instances it is the ‘copper’ (actually brass) that is given first.
This can be understood as an indication of whether a work is in première-partie or contre-partie marquetry. In the case of the pieces number 725 to 727, the two first numbers were adorned ‘en première partie’ and number 727 ‘en contre partie’, as are the Victoria and Albert Museum tables.
This article is written by Yves Carlier, Deputy Director of the Château de Versailles.