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Pair of Corner Cupboards

Creator

French Artist · 1720–1800

The son of an *ébéniste* , Pierre Garnier was one of the pioneers of the Neoclassical style in furniture. As early as 1761, when other cabinetmakers were still creating furniture in the Rococo style with floral marquetry and curvilinear gilt bronze mounts, Garnier produced furniture based on architectural forms decorated with parquetry and motifs drawn from the architecture of classical antiquity

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Date: about 1765
Medium: Fir and oak veneered with ebony, tulipwood, amaranth and willow; gilt-bronze mounts; marble tops
Culture: French
Department: Decorative Arts
Institution: Getty Museum

While extremely decorative, this pair of triangular corner cupboards contains little space for storage. The cupboards are only two feet wide and too shallow to function as pedestals for any but small sculptures. In addition, if they are not screwed to the wall, they will topple over when their heavy, four-foot-high doors are opened. Produced around 1765, these cupboards' straight lines and the forms of the gilt-bronze mounts exemplify the earliest phase of the Neoclassical style. A major component of this style was the use of large-scale motifs drawn from classical antiquity: rosettes, laurel garlands, a scrolling frieze, and column-like ridges down each side. This pair and another pair, now missing, furnished a small mezzanine apartment in Versailles.

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