Date: Fri 29-May-1998

Publication: Ant

Author: LAURAB

Quick Words:

Lannuier

Full Text:

Honore Lannuier: Cabinetmaker From Paris

(W/Cuts)

BY LAURA BEACH

NEW YORK CITY -- Like the craftsman whose name it bears, "Honore Lannuier:

Cabinetmaker From Paris" is both lushly flamboyant and rigorously restrained.

This, in large measure, is thanks to Peter M. Kenny, the exuberant curator who

has perfectly encapsulated the paradox in an exhibition at the Metropolitan

Museum of Art through June 14.

The emigre ebeniste who revolutionized New York taste from 1803 until his

death in 1819 is best known as the transmitter of a sumptuously gilded,

lavishly archaeological French style. But, as Kenny demonstrates, discipline

rather than indulgence brought the Gallic perfectionist to fame.

Charles-Honore Lannuier (b. 1779) was zealous in his practice from first to

last. Unlike most of his competitors, he left a definitive body of marked

work. He was adamant in his choice of woods, exacting in his use of veneers,

unerring in his eye for proportion, meticulous in his carving, and scrupulous

in his application of finishes and metal mounts.

The same diligence and concision marks Kenny's long awaited research, which

surveys Lannuier's contribution in a lively, graceful way. Published by Harry

N. Abrams, Honore Lannuier: Cabinetmaker From Paris (softcover $45, clothbound

$60) includes two bookend chapters, one by Ulrich Leben and the other by

Frances F. Bretter, on the cabinetmaker's formative years abroad and his

subsequent American clientele. Kenny's concluding essay on connoisseurship is

an indispensable guide to Lannuier technique and style. A 125-entry catalogue

describes every documented or firmly attributed piece in full.

Unlike his rival Duncan Phyfe, who loved the limelight, Lannuier seemed

content to have kept a low profile. "He remains a French citizen his whole

life. He stays at his Broad Street address. He doesn't get a bigger shop. He

finds a niche and is comfortable," says Kenny. With no surviving descriptions

of the man, no shop records, and only a few bills, the curator formed a

composite portrait of the cabinetmaker by studying the nuance of his craft.

Kenny began work on the show shortly after arriving at the Met in 1992. "There

was an air of inevitability about the project," he writes. Phyfe, who lingered

in the collective social memory, was for decades "the American Chippendale,"

as domestic as apple pie. Though Lannuier was not fully recognized until the

1960s, it was former American Wing curator Berry B. Tracy who brought him to

light.

Kenny inherited a scholarly tradition begun by Ernest F. Hagen (1830-1913),

the German-American cabinetmaker who made a career copying Phyfe. Between 1892

and 1906, Hagen collected scraps of information on Lannuier, saving it in a

notebook now at the Museum of the City of New York. By 1922, the Met had

inadvertently acknowledged Lannuier by including a signed and labeled New

York-style gaming table by the Frenchman in "Furniture Masterpieces By Duncan

Phyfe." It was a decade before Thomas Hamilton Ormsbee spotted Lannuier's

stamp on the edge of the drawer.

Consecutive articles by Ormsbee appeared in The Magazine Antiques in 1933. A

year later, Met curator Joseph Downs organized "Loan Exhibition of New York

State Furniture." The show united a spectacular pair of gilded, figural card

tables -- the epitome of late Lannuier style -- with the understated "gout

moderne" items preferred by Henry du Pont. Downs' unflagging interest in the

craftsman, writes Kenny, culminated with the Met's 1946 purchase of a

supremely elegant Directoire-style card table from Lannuier's early period,

1805-12.

In the late 1960s, under Tracy's eminent direction, the museum acquired its

first examples of gilded, figural Lannuier furniture. After the death of the

man who for 17 years served as curator of the American Wing, the Met secured

his papers. "The Tracy Archives have been invaluable in enabling me to write

about Lannuier's life and work in the overall context of the New York

cabinetmaking trade in the early Nineteenth Century -- a wonderfully complex

story that has never been told," notes Kenny, who distilled a century's worth

of scholarship before embarking on his own.

"I'm not an expert in French furniture, but I know more about it than I did,"

protests the curator, whose preparation took him to Paris to study sources and

influences in Lannuier's design. "What is it, German?," French authorities

would ask, mystified by the curious amalgamation of French, English, and New

York prototype in the cabinetmaker's product.

This mingling of old and new world influences in goods meant to appeal to a

melting-pot clientele is what brands Lannuier furniture as distinctly

American. "Lannuier was as subject to forces here as to forces from his past.

He imported ideas and craftsmen from France, then ran up against the English

Regency," Kenny explains.

Equal parts assimilation and inspiration, the complex story unfolds in four

large galleries just off the American Wing's garden court. The spareness of

the installation dramatizes the majesty of the material, which barely hides

its imperial ambitions.

In the opening gallery, the breadth of Lannuier's oeuvre is revealed in an

assortment spanning "le gout moderne," or Directoire style, to "le gout

antique," or Consulat and Empire taste. "This early material is as rare as

anything. What's interesting is that it was also the first collected," says

Kenny, gesturing to an attenuated, marble-top pier table with its restrained

decoration limited to burnished brass inlays and lustrous veneers.

A second gallery houses comparative displays of card tables, square pier

tables, and beds, three fortes of a designer who evolved a limited line to

satisfy the cravings of his clientele. They consumed French furniture the way

they consumed French pastry, in small but exceedingly rich portions.

Lannuier's sway is reflected in the New York cabinetmaker' books of prices,

which in 1810 and 1817 introduced six new French forms: the French press

(armoire), the French bureau (commode), the French sideboard (desserte),

French bedstead (lit a travers), the square pier table (console antique), and

screen dressing glass (psyche).

"People were not hung up with being completely Empire French, but they liked a

few accents. You could do a wall like this," says Kenny, citing Pierre de la

Mesangere's design of 1808, showing a square pier table surmounted by a mirror

and elaborate curtain treatment. Beds crowned with yards of costly fabric

fulfilled a similar need, providing a chic and showy backdrop for intimate

entertaining.

Radiating French lux and volupte, the most opulent gallery defines Lannuier's

mature antique style, which dates from 1812 to 1819. "It has made me a real

snob for just this kind of New York furniture," says Kenny, brushing off

suggestions that these extravagant fabrications were way over the top.

Crouching, he explicates the anatomy of a 1817 card table, one of a pair that

the Met acquired just the year before last. "Lannuier satisfied a great desire

for Classical accuracy, rendered in an elegant way," Kenny says. "Start with

the carved paw feet. They extend to leafage, which captures the weight of the

form. Lannuier cradles the platform and inserts this figure, all compound

curves. She alights and occupies the space. The upper section is approached

architecturally, with a frieze, cornice, and molding, a nice architectural

finish." Rising, he admires the flickering sequence of gilded finishes, from

dull matte to high sheen. The array of card tables and canted-corner pier

tables that light the room are Lannuier's signal gift to American design.

Lannuier was hardly the only French cabinetmaker working in New York. In a

final gallery, Kenny challenges attentive viewers to compare the master's hand

to unmarked, undocumented pieces by his competition, perhaps Joseph Brauwers,

J.M. Gicquel, or even Duncan Phyfe. The humbling exercise is a reminder of the

subtleties of these complex creations, in which many skilled hands played an

as yet indeterminate part.

Though Honore Lannuier is in print, the book on New York cabinetmaking in the

late Federal era is far from closed. "I hope I left the door open," says

Kenny, who continues to sift through evidence and hope for the letter, bill,

signature, or label that will clarify all. After a century of exploration,

such a discovery seems unlikely. But who knows? Already Kenny has provided a

provocative sequel, presenting new findings in the May issue of The Magazine

Antiques.

The curator will give a gallery talk on May 27 at 11 am. Lectures by Marvin

Schwartz are planned for June 5 at 11 am and June 9 at 3 pm.

At Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is open

Fridays and Saturdays, 9:30 am to 9 pm; and Sundays, and Tuesdays and

Thursdays from 9:30 am to 5:15 pm. Telephone 212/535-7710.