Henry Dasson (1825-1896)

gilt bronze, mahogany, porphyry

signed 'Henry Dasson et Cie. 1889'

Please note that this piece currently located in Hong Kong

Lécoules Collection, Paris

V. Champier (ed), Revue des arts décoratifs, Paris, 1883 (the Tables des Arts at the 1883 Amsterdam exhibition);

M. Meynard, ‘Classe – 17 Meubles à bon marché et meubles de luxe’,. Rapports du jury international publiés sous la direction de M. Alfred Picard, Exposition universelle internationale de 1889 à Paris. 1891, p. 8 (the present table described);

C. Mestdagh, L’Ameublement d’art français 1850-1900, Paris, 2010, pp. 108 and 109, figs. 105 and 106.

C. Payne, Paris Furniture – The Luxury Market of the 19th Century, Paris, p. 310 (the related 1878 ‘Table des Quatre Saisons’).

Porphyry, with all its associations of majesty and imperial splendour, is combined with the king of all cabinetmaking woods, mahogany, and gilt bronze of exceptional quality in this superb exhibition piece by Henry Dasson.

The clean, open elegance of this table is in the style of the final period of pre-Revolutionary decorative art, named the Louis XVI style after the reigning monarch of the time.

Henry Dasson was one of a group of historicist luxury furniture makers in the late nineteenth century, catering for an eager public that, amidst the urbanisation and industrialisation of their era, was obsessed with the splendour and fine taste of the previous century. Dasson, together with Maison Beurdeley, was the most successful luxury furniture house of its day, and did not simply replicate older models, but successfully created inventive new designs, as the present one.

This extraordinary table is called the ‘Table des Arts’ on account of the use of emblems and personifications for the fine arts. Not only do the caryatids hold the tools that signify Sculpture, Music, Painting and Poetry, but these emblems are also employed in the gilt-bronze mounts of each leg. In the friezes, too, we see objects like violins, column capitals and even a book by the ancient epic poet Homer, all coming together to represent Europe’s various artistic achievements.

This model of table has been well documented and was praised by contemporary critics on account of the superior quality of its gilt-bronze mounts. As an ‘exhibition piece’, it was used as a top example of Dasson’s work in the various international exhibitions of decorative art held across Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Dasson made several, the first of which was seen in the 1878 Paris Exhibition, then another at the 1883 Amsterdam Exhibition.

The present table, which is dated 1889 next to the Dasson signature, was almost certainly exhibited in Paris in 1889, which we can identify from the printed description of a “small Louis XVI table in mahogany, the top in porphyry, with four legs in the form of fine statues in chased [gilt] bronze”. This review also notes that the jury awarded Dasson with a prize for these objects.