The Hamilton Palace Sale of 1882

Part One: Fourteen lots are illustrated, all with the most amazing images for that era and for a catalog!

June 17, 1882,

The Duke of Hamilton outdid them all in 1882. Never before or since, I'd hazard, has such a lofty ducal seat been disassembled at the rank hand of commerce. I can't rank the pictures, but if they're anything like the holdings from the ancien regime of the Bourbon family, then they're splendid.

The secretaire a abattant, Lot #518, with the female figure in marquetry holding her finger to her lips in the universal sign for silence is a part of the Vanderbilt bequest to the Metropolitan Museum of New York. Enjoy fans of FFF!













Lot 162. "A Pair of Tall Oviform Vases, of old gros-bleu Sèvres porcelain, mounted with ormolu, with bird's-head handles and festoons of flowers and foliage, chased in high-relief by Gouthiere. 14-inches high." I wonder if this is more what we would call an mottled egg-shell finish. In any event, the taste is the most austere neo-classicism imaginable, the gilded bronze work of a quality never to be repeated, in three colors of red, yellow and green gold, matte and burnished, and so finely chiseled the details were microscopically sharp on the neck's of the bitter swans forming the carrying handles.


























184 The d'Artois Cabinet, a Louis XIV commode, of ebony inlaid with fine panels, by Buhl, of brass and white metal on tortoiseshell, mounted with massive handles and ornaments of or-molu, chased with bacchanalian and other masks in high relief, the monogram C.A. and the arms of France surrounded by boys with garlands of flowers forming the key plates, and steel key with openwork handle, surmounted by a fine slab of malachite -- 5 ft. 4 in. by 2 ft. 2 in., branded with Monogram ME










































Numbers 301, 302, and 303 ensuite, by Jean-Henri Riesener for Marie Antoinette (at Versailles?) He was the most ruinously expensive of the Corporation des Menuisiers-Ébénistes, even the crown had to give him up, but not until the fully expressed neo-classicism of these pieces. I must trace if they are still together. Look at the prices! 6000 guineas! Wasn't the yearly income for a char-something about 12?


















Part Two has 19 illustrations, coming up soon! Then there's a third, forth, and fifth portions!
Hamilton Palace Sale, Second Portion,