£500 - £1,000
A RARE HIGHLY NATURALISTIC FRENCH LIMEWOOD TROMPE L'OEIL CARVING OF A DEAD BIRD BY TO JEAN DEMONTREUIL, C1780-1790 backed on silk in glazed oval walnut frame, 37 x 28cm
Few superlatives can adequately describe the great delicacy and astonishing realism of Demontreuil's carvings. He seems to have specialised in birds and exhibited at the Paris Salons between 1791 and 1798. The little serin, swallow and nightingale are known. Even the string or cord from which his life size birds hang is part of the carving. Lifelike works of art appealed to exactly those connoisseurs in whose libraries might be found the great botanical and natural history books of the period. Objects such as the finest carvings or miniature bronzes would be a focus of the boudoir or cabinet (study), that 18th century version of the kunstkammer of the 16th and 17th centuries. Other closely comparable bird carvings by Demontreuil are at Burghley House, Lincolnshire, the V & A, the Louvre and the Historisches Museum, Basel.
In unrestored condition, the silk backing threadbare and worn, glass of frame loose, shrinkage cracks around moulded rim of frame, the carving in apparently very good condition
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