Panel model

Unknown

ca. 1780–85 · Carved oak · European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

This panel displays delicate low relief carving of floral garlands, floral wreaths, and vines, as well as a smoking perfume burner on stand (athénienne) supported on acanthus scrolls ending in floral sprigs, rosettes, and wheatears. The small scale of this neoclassical panel and the high quality carving suggest it may have been made by a decorative sculptor as a masterpiece for presentation at the Académie royale d’architecture (Royal Academy of Architecture) in order to show his talent and secure future commissions. This anonymous low relief was part of the model collection of woodwork, paneling, and seat furniture of Maison Leys, a successful decorating business, located at the Place de la Madeleine in Paris. Since 1885 the business was directed by Georges Hoentschel who installed the collection in 1903 in a museum-like display at Boulevard Flandrin, Paris. Three years later Hoentschel sold the collection to J. Pierpont Morgan who gave the panel with the rest of the decorator’s seventeenth and eighteenth century objects to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1907.

Artist

Unknown

Date

ca. 1780–85

Medium

Carved oak

Culture

French

Department

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Credit line

Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1906