A group of men seated around a table about to dine, in the foreground is the ewer and basin which were used for washing of hands. Photograph by G. Lékégian, circa 1880. (Archives David Allan)

French Orientalist Silver of the Nineteenth‑Century

Orientalism in France was a fanciful image of the mostly Middle-East and things eastern, rather than a reality. The French ‘rêve d’orient’ was often based on the books, paintings and photographs of those who had travelled, rather than first-hand experience. Indeed much of the content of those books, paintings and photographs, was even then, the work of a fertile French imagination.

Except for the master of the house, or the eunichs, men were not allowed into harems; and it would certainly have been near impossible for a foreigner even less a foreign man, to have had access to such scenes of presumed exotic delight.

There had already been literary and artistic contact between France and the east by the beginning of the nineteenth-century. The French artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) was inspired by the ‘Turkish Letters’ of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, (published in 1763, shortly after her death) who was the wife of the English ambassador to Constantinople in 1716. In 1806-11, Mouhib Effendi, the ambassador extraordinary of Sultan Selim III visited Paris, and in 1811 the French author Chateaubriand published his ‘Itinerary from Paris to Jerusalem’. By 1839 there was already a trade agreement between France and Turkey, and C.-X. Bianchi, following his ‘Complete French – Turkish Dictionary’, published his guide to conversation in French and Turkish, to help both French travellers in the Levant and Turks travelling to France.

Title page from Bianchi’s Conversation Guide, ‘Le Guide de la Conversation en Français et en Turc.’ Paris, 1839. (Collection David Allan, Paris)

The French author Pierre Loti (1850-1923) first travelled to Turkey in 1876-77, and his book ‘Aziyadé’ published in 1879 was set in Constantinople, as was its sequel ‘Fantôme d’Orient’ published in 1892. Often those who travelled to the middle east made many voyages, sometimes staying for years at a time. When returning to France they brought with them souvenirs of their stay abroad such as fabrics, furniture and metalwork. Many of them, as well as many who did not travel bought paintings with orientalist subjects. Some like Edmond de Rothschild (1845-1934) who built a fumoir in his Paris hôtel particulier, re-decorated their homes. Amongst the many writers in search of the exotic, was Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) who travelled to Tunisia in 1846 and returned to France with a father and son team of Tunisian artisans who created a ‘salon mauresque’ in his château Monte-Cristo near Paris.

The most common Arabo / Islamic metalwork forms are the bowl and the ewer; other forms are candlesticks, incense burners, plates, rose-water sprinklers and mosque lamps. Early Arabo / Islamic metalwork was made of base metal alloys and often incrusted with silver or gold. It is only in later pieces that silver was used and hallmarked in the same way as was done in Europe. While often illustrated by European orientalist painters, there is little contemporary documentation of the use of such pieces. Amongst the foreign photographers was G. Lékégian, an Armenian who worked throughout the Middle East from about 1860 to 1890. He opened a studio in Cairo in 1887 and was known to have sold his photographs to European painters.

A coffee service à la turc with tray and zarfs. Fannière Frères, Paris. (Archives David Allan)

Often French-made silver in the orientalist style very closely copied oriental models, and was made for exhibitions as well as for important Middle Eastern buyers. One example is the silver ewer and basin made by Marrel Frères in Paris, exhibited by them at the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition in London. It was one of the works bought from the manufacturers by the Victoria and Albert museum for the sum of sixteen pounds. Described by the silversmiths as having been made « entirely by hand, with a chisel, after the manner of the Arabs », it was considered as vastly inferior to the Islamic prototypes. Nonetheless Marrel won a Council Medal for their display in the 1851 exhibition. They had earlier won a gold medal at the Paris 1839 exhibition National de l’Industrie, and were suppliers to the French Emperor and Empress. It is very close in design to that in the photograph by Lékégian. Such ewers and basins were used to pour water for the washing of hands before a meal.

All the important Parisian silversmiths made silver in the oientalist style. Charles Nicholas Odiot, perhaps better known for his neo-classical designs, exhibited an orientalist coffee pot, designed by the sculptor and artist Paul Edouard Récipon, in the 1851 exhibition in London, which was described in the Art-Journal catalogue, with typical English understatement, as a ‘coffee-pot, of very elegant form and ornamentation.’ It was exhibited again in London in 1862, and elicited the greatest flattery. While the engraving on Christofle’s similarly elongated form is described as being ‘excecuted with great delicacy in the Renaissance style (sic). Fannière Frères also produced work in this style, of the greatest sophistication.

A coffee service à la turc in champlevé enamel with polylobed tray. (Musée Bouilhet-Christofle, Saint-Denis)	A pen and ink drawing of a ewer to be made by Maisson Christofle (Musée Bouilhet-Christofle, Saint-Denis)

Also strongly oriental are the examples shown in the drawing from the archives at the Christofle museum, and the photograph of the Turkish coffee service with eight zarfs. This service was made circa 1862 and exhibited at both the Universal Exhibition in London, and at the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris. Jules Mesnard, in his ‘Merveilles de l’Exposition Universelle de 1867’, was overwhelmed by the grace of the orientalist exhibits, and this service in particular.

The Maison Christofle was one of the most important silversmiths in France during the nineteenth-century. Founded in 1845 by Charles Christofle (1805-1863), and best known for its silver-plated wares, Christofle was also at the forefront of silver design and business trends throughout the rest of the century. Silversmith to Napoleon III, and present at all the exhibitions, both national and international, Christofle became to many, synonymous with silverware. By 1860 Christofle had representatives in Algeria, and by the 1880’s they were present in Egypt, Tunisia and Turkey. In fact there were already two representatives in Turkey as early as the eighteen sixties.(1) The Christofle Tarif-Album of 1862 had four pages of articles specifically for the Levant, as well as a four piece tea and coffee service in the oriental style made for the French domestic market. In 1865 Christofle supplied the khédive Ismail Pacha with a 600 piece service. Born in Cairo in 1830, he was khédive from 1863 until 1879, and died in Istanbul in 1895. (Perhaps surprisingly the cutlery was in the traditional Louis XVI perles pattern, which was available in their catalogues from 1864 until 1905).

An important engraved silver tea and coffee service with samovar and tray, Henri Duponchel, vers 1870. (Collection David Allan, Paris)

Christofle were later to develop an important export business with the levant, however oriental models made for the domestic market were less successful. A charming example, referred to in the 1862 catalogue as ‘modèle Arabe’, adapted as a five-piece set did not sell well, nor did a series of pieces, (such as the bowl ilustrated above), copied from Persian examples by the galvanoplasty process.

There is an example of the bol persan, supported by a simple stand, at the Christofle museum in Saint-Denis near Paris, dated 1881. This, like the bassin, (see illustration), and the base of a mosque lamp which was converted into a lamp were copied in very limited numbers from Persian originals using the galvanoplasty process,(2) and were produced for the French market.

Related decorative motifs recur again and again in French orientalist silver. Quite different from their later ewer and basin, bought in 1851 by the V&A museum in London, a small jewelled and enamelled gold cup in the moorish taste, (catalogue page 17), illustrates the diversity of the Marrel’s production. Another piece from the earlier part of the nineteenth-century is a ewer and basin by Wagner and Mention, made around 1835 and now in the collection of the Louvre museum in Paris. Enamelled, nielloed and inset with stones it’s primary decorative motif is, like the Marrel covered cup, orientalist. A similar motif can be seen also in the large circular tray from the Duponchel service, (see colour illustration at right).

This tray also has deep acid-engraved arabisant designs, similar to those on the walls of Dumas’ salon mauresque, which are also used on a pair of sauce boats made by Jean Bonnet for Duponchel. While they are of more traditional form, with handles intertwined with snakes biting a scallop shell, the design on the underside and on the foot of each sauce boat is clearly arabisant. Again, on a six piece service which carries the maker’s mark of Henri Duponchel, and typical of his orientalist style, the same motifs can be seen as those on the large tray.

A silver coffee pot by Maurice Mayer, Paris, circa 1855. (Collection David Allan, Paris)(4)	A silver coffee pot made by Pierre-François Queillé, Paris, circa 1845. (Collection David Allan, Paris)

Perhaps most interesting of the design motifs found on Duponchel’s orientalist silver is the row of stylised ducks around the base of the cafetière, (See colour illustration at top of article). A piece of exceptional quality and sophistication of design, it is certainly possible that Duponchel had seen early related Fars metalwork. Similar decoration can be seen in a Fars cast brass bowl, inlaid with silver and gold. (12.5 cm high and 25.1 cm in diameter), made circa 750-75 / 1350-75. This bowl, in the Es-Said collection came from the Cartier collection, and a similar piece now in the Louvre was given by a French collector to the Musée Cluny at the begining of the twentieth-century. Interest in early Islamic metalwork was great in the nineteenth-century, and it was not uncommon for the wealthy to have small collections of Islamic works of art. An example being the Comte de Toulouse-Lautrec (1842-1907), much of whose collection was amassed during a long visit to Egypt in 1879. A later piece of interest is a large Syrian brass circular dish inlaid with silver and with interlaced decoration, measuring 63 cm in diameter.

A Boucheron silver ewer, or coffee-pot, (see catalogue), like the four piece sevice, is after a design by Paul Legrand, and was made by the silversmith Charles Glachant for Frédéric Boucheron. It is the same model, more highly decorated, as the coffee-pot and sugar bowl, (catalogue number 10). The ewer was sold in 1880 to the Grand Duc Vladimir of Russia. The high flared bases were taken from oriental models (see similar work by both Christofle and Fannière). A related form of the ewer itself can also be seen in a design by Jules Peyre in his book ‘Orfèvrerie, bijouterie, nielle, armoiries et objets d’arts divers, recueillis, composés, dessinés et lithographiés par Jules Peyre’ published in Paris in 1845.

A silver coffee pot by François-Désirée Froment-Meurice. Paris, circa 1850. Arguably the most important mid-nineteenth century French silversmth, he was made silversmith to the city of Paris. (Collection David Allan, Paris)(5)	Tetard turc A silver coffee pot made by Tétard Frères for the Turkish market, Paris, circa 1880. (Collection David Allan, Paris)

Jules Peyre, who for a time was director of design at the Sèvres porcelain manufacture, and whose silver designs were made by Morel, amongst others, also published a design for an orientalist coffee-pot. This model, shown on plate 4 of his book of designs is remarkably similar to both catalogue numbers O.15 and O.16, made by Maurice Mayer. A similar design by Mayer was exhibited at one of the Universal Exhibitions.

Orientalist designs and design motifs were published both in books and in silversmith’s trade catalogues, and were used and copied freely, and as the century progressed there developed an homogeneity of design in French orientalist silver. Silver coffee-pots made by Queillé, Veyrat, Tétard, Lavallée and Hugo are all remarkably similar. The guilloché technique has existed since the late eighteenth-century, when the first « tour à guillocher » was made for Louis XVI by the saxon Mercklein. However Christofle did not present their first pieces with guilloché decoration until the Universal Exhibition of 1862. Sadly many of the later pieces, made towards the end of the century, lack quality of workmanship and use different design motifs almost indiscriminately. However the work of the best French silversmiths of the nineteenth-century are of the finest quality and most sophisticated design and show that cultural influences move in both directions.
David Allan ©

Fin …

Duponchel teapot A silver-plated teapot made for the middle eastern market by Henri Duponchel, Paris, circa 1870. (Collection David Allan, Paris)

(1) Marc de Ferrière le Vayer, Christofle, deux siècles d’aventure industrielle 1793-1993. Paris, Le Monde Editions, 1995.
(2) M. Smee, Nouveau Manuel Complet de Galvanoplastie ou Elements d’electro-metallurgie.
París, Editions du Librairie Encyclopédique de Roret, 1850.
(3) Garo Kürkmann, Ottoman Silver Marks. Istanbul, 1996.
(4) On 11 July 1853, Maurice Mayer was named ‘ Fournisseur de l’Empereur Napoléon’.
(5) Philippe Burty, F.-D. Froment Meurice argentier de la ville 1802-1855. Paris, 1883.
Exhibition catalogue ‘Trésors d’Argent, les Froment-Meurice, orfèvres romantiques parisiens. Paris, 2003.

Post scriptum
The exhibition catalogue is available through the web-site or through booksellors in Belgium (Posada in Brussels, and Sterckshof Museum in Antwerp), France (Librairie du Passage, De Nobèle, Galignani, Fischbacher, Insitut du Monde Arabe, Musée de la Vie Romantique, Librairie du musée des Arts Décoratifs and Librairie Lardanchet), Germany (Kurt Götz), England (Thomas Heneage) and America (Spencer Marks, and Sam Hough).

The collection as exhibited at the Galerie Berko in Paris and the Sterckshof Museum in Antwerp, and as illustrated in the catalogue, (with two additions), is available for rental or for sale.

At top:
An exceptional silver coffee pot with engraved niello decoration by Henri Duponchel. Paris, circa 1855. (Collection David Allan, Paris)