Style Other / Ref.12995

Charles-Guillaume DIEHL, Pair of Pedestals in wood and Bronze, circa 1870

This pair of black lacquered tripod stands with numerous finely chiseled bronze ornaments was crafted by cabinetmaker Charles Guillaume Diehl (1811-1885) during the 1870s.

The stands consist of a small tabletop surrounded by a serrated decorative edge, resting on three curving legs. These legs, highlighted with numerous gilded bronze ornaments, including lion paws at their lower ends, are connected by a stretcher. Three gilded bronze beasts support the tabletop, each standing on a wooden block adorned with bronze decorations on the sides and inside – including rosettes – that hold a turned wooden spindle finished with a bronze tip. The stretcher features additional bronze ornaments, including three spindles each holding a ring and lion mascarons between them. At the center of the stretcher, the cabinetmaker added a wooden pyramid also adorned with bronze. The base connecting the three legs includes gilded bronze ornaments at each end, as well as a central pinecone finial.

Trained in marquetry, cabinetmaker Charles Guillaume Diehl (1811-1885) specialized in creating small pieces of furniture made of rare woods and adorned with refined and exceptionally luxurious bronze decorations. In the 1860s, Diehl began to design furniture in a more personal style, employing an ornamental vocabulary inspired by ancient Greek and Egyptian art, presenting a decorative grammar bordering on the fantastic, as seen here with the hybrid sphinxes. He participated in several World’s Fairs, including those of 1867, 1873 – where he won a progress medal – and Paris in 1878, where he was excluded from competition due to his prior successes.

Diehl’s style evolved over time. Initially focused on furniture inspired by the 18th century, veneered with precious woods or in the Boulle marquetry style, his work underwent a transformation in the 1860s. From this period onward, Charles Diehl created furniture in a more distinctive style, blending neo-Greek and neo-Medieval ornamental vocabularies into a decorative grammar that pushed the boundaries of the fantastical. For the 1867 World’s Fair, he collaborated with renowned artists known for their imagination, such as sculptor Emmanuel Frémiet (1824-1910) and designer and ornamentist Jean Brandely (active between 1867 and 1873). During this event, he earned a silver medal for a series of caskets, including a Neo-Renaissance ebony casket adorned with bronzes and oxidized silver bas-reliefs featuring salamanders, as well as another in blue marble with gilded bronzes, purchased by Napoleon III for his cousin, Princess Mathilde. He also won a bronze medal, which he refused, for three pieces of furniture: a large table, an Etruscan-style bookcase, and the coin cabinet now housed at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

Due to stylistic similarities with certain works by Emmanuel Frémiet, it appears that the meeting between the two artists – which later led to collaborations – played a key role in the stylistic evolution of Charles Diehl. This marked the beginning of a distinctive artistic output, highly recognizable within Parisian cabinetmaking of the second half of the 19th century.