JOSEPH-EMMANUEL ZWIENER (born c.1849) - Receive artist alerts » - More items from this artist »

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Kingwood and Gilt-Bronze

Stamped ‘NZ.309’ and ‘ZJ’ on the reverse of the bronze. Also signed to the reverse of the lockplate 'Mon THEAU THIEFFINE Succ./SERRURIER PARIS'.

99.00cm wide    163.00cm high    39.00cm deep (38.98 inches wide  64.17 inches high  15.35 inches deep)

Camille Mestdagh, Pierre Lécoules: ‘L'Ameublement d'art français : 1850-1900’; Editions de l'Amateur, 2010; pp. 301-309.

This fine kingwood Vitrine has a shaped Fleur de Pêcher marble top above a frieze centred by a round classical Jasperware plaque framed by gilt-bronze putti supporters and scrolling acanthus mounts. The bevelled glass door has a gilt-bronze frame and below a panel centred by a large Jasperware plaque depicting a putto with a wheat sheaf and a sickle. The door is framed to either side by monnaie running pattern and headed by a pair of exceptionally finely cast female caryatid figures with ringlets in their hair and supporting baskets of fruit. The shaped sides have corresponding bevelled glass panels and the vitrine is raised on tapering fluted legs.

The distinctive gilt-bronze caryatid figures to either side of the door are of a model unique to Zwiener.

Joseph-Emmanuel Zwiener was an important Paris furniture maker of German extraction, who was born in Silesia circa 1848. He produced the very finest furniture, often copied from public collections in France. He employed as his sculptor, Leon Messagé, the Parisian sculptor of genius.

Zwiener's pieces were acquired by many of the leading collectors of the nineteenth century. In particular he supplied his interpretation of the famous Bureau de Roi to Ludwig II at Herrenchiemsee, which was placed in the King's study in 1884.

Zwiener exhibited at the 1889 Paris Exhibition, where he was awarded a gold medal, for a stand which included an exceptional cabinet designed by Messagé (illustrated in Meyer, pl. H14).

In 1898, Zwiener received an extensive Royal commission from the King of Prussia, and was recalled to Berlin as the King would not order furniture from overseas makers when furnishing his palaces, preferring to order work from native Germans only. The Berlin Sculptor Otto Rohloff, whose bronze work is very similar to that of Messagé may have been hired by Zwiener for this Royal commission.

In 1895 his workshop was taken over by the important émigré and ebeniste, François Linke, who Christopher Payne speculates may have worked under Zwiener when he first arrived in Paris in 1875. Linke is known to have also taken on Zwiener's sculptor Leon Messagé. For this reason many of Zwiener's pieces have often been attributed to Linke.

In order to differentiate between Messagés commissions, the gilt-bronze mounts were often marked to the reverse with the maker's initials. Several of Zwiener's mounts have been found to have a 'Z', 'Zw', a 'IZ', 'NZ', 'ZN' or 'ZJ' on the reverse. This was primarily for the purpose of differentiation, rather than an artist's signature. Some of Zwiener's work was stamped but not exclusively, and only a few pieces have been found with a full signature and /or a date.

It can be speculated that Zwiener continued to work in Germany, after giving up his Paris workshop in 1895, as in 1900 he participated in the German section of the Paris Exhibition, where he exhibited the famous bedroom suite made for the Kaiser.