Stained wood and mahogany chest of drawers, brass... Lot 236

Stained wood and mahogany chest of drawers, brass filleting and gilt bronze, opening to a drawer and two leaves, with gilt bronze caryatid uprights resting on circular feet. Stamped by Alexandre Louis Bellangé (1797-1861). Mid-19th century. H. 234 cm, W. 141 cm, D. 59 cm Bibliography - Sylvain Cordier, Bellangé, ébénistes - Une histoire du goût au XIXe siècle, Ed. Mare Martin, Paris, 2012, p. 568, repr. - Sylvain Cordier, La famille Bellangé, ébénistes à Paris de la Révolution au Second Empire, PhD thesis, Université Paris IV, September 2009 Son of Pierre-Antoine Bellangé (1757-1827), official supplier to the Empire and then the Restoration, Louis-Alexandre succeeded his father at the head of the family workshop in 1825. He took part in the Produits de l'Industrie exhibitions of 1827, 1834 and 1839, establishing himself "as one of the leading cabinetmakers of his time and one of the masters of historicist taste in furniture design". His production, over a period of forty years, is characterized by two principles: the persistence of the Empire aesthetic, inherited from the publications of Percier and Fontaine, and the introduction of an ornamental aesthetic drawn from national history, whose references seem to have been drawn from works in the Revoil collection, which entered the Royal Museum in 1828. Bellangé's interest in this new iconographic vocabulary dates back to 1827, when it was first presented at the exhibition.