The London-based collector Nicolas Cattelain, whose contemporary works are currently part of an exhibition in Sheffield Cathedral, also has a taste for older work. He has bought an 18th-century Louis XVI chimney made for the private bedchamber of the duc d’Aumont, a well-known collector, in the Hôtel d’Aumont (later the Hôtel de Crillon) in Paris. An auction house had value the chimney for a five-figure sum, but William Iselin, a specialist adviser in 16th- to 19th-century decorative arts, was able to discover its rich provenance—thanks in part to architects’ records at the Besançon public library. Iselin won’t comment on how much the new provenance added to the work, but important French chimneys from this period can sell for more than £200,000.
Iselin originally believed that the chimney’s gilt bronzes were made by Pierre Gouthière, who worked for the duc d’Aumont. Subsequent research alongside curators at New York’s Frick Collection, which has a Gouthière show planned for November 2016 (then moving to the Wallace Collection in London), has revealed that they are the work of one of his fellow bronziers, Jean-Baptiste Guyart, but still of relevance to the Gouthière story. The chimney has been requested for the Wallace exhibition.
