Rare middle bed with inverted headboards and wide... Lot 298

Rare middle bed with inverted headboards and wide molded "flanges", in solid mahogany, adorned on the sides and long sides with patinated and gilded bronze decoration of fleurons in quadrilaterals alternating with palmettes. The palmettes continue on the upper part of the detached spool feet, surmounted by pastilles and encircled by bronze moldings, finished with casters. Stamped B. Molitor. Directoire period (possible restoration of the foot ends) Headboard height: 103 cm W. : 223 cm - D. : 141 cm A cabinetmaker born in Luxembourg, MOLITOR (1755-1833) settled in Paris in the mid-1770s. After a difficult start, he received his master's degree in 1787 and remained active until 1819, weathering all the economic difficulties of these decades. His high-quality work is characterized by sobriety and harmonious proportions. He received a number of royal commissions, including a mahogany parquet floor for Marie-Antoinette's cabinet in Fontainebleau, and mainly supplied members of the French and foreign nobility: the Comte de Chartres, the Polignacs, the Marquis Lafayette, the Baron de Staël Holstein, ambassador of the King of Sweden, Count Fernand Nuñez, ambassador of the King of Spain, who in 1788 made purchases for the royal residences in Madrid... This bed is typical of Bernard Molitor's work in its quality of execution, with elegant, sober lines that reflect his desire to combine purity of material, simplicity of form and measured use of bronze. Bernard Molitor benefited from a detailed study by Ulrich Leben1 , who listed eleven resting beds, only two of which were stamped, but did not reserve a paragraph for the beds themselves, as they were rare, and to date only one other example is known, the shape of which resembles a paphosis, It is stamped2 and was sold in London - which Mr. Leben was kind enough to confirm to me. There is another bed3 that could have been attributed to Molitor, so close is the sculpted decoration to his daybeds, but this one is stamped Jacob Desmalter: its architecture and use of solid mahogany are very similar to the one on display today. The same can be said of the consoles and secretaries with flaps: could we speak of an "interaction" or "collaboration" between these two cabinetmakers? 1 Ulrich Leben, Molitor, Ebéniste de Louis XVI à Louis XVIII, London, 1992. 2 Christie's London, July 4, 2017, no. 42. 3 Vante Ader, Paris June 22, 2018, n°218.