Julien-Nicolas Rivart

Julien-Nicolas Rivart (* 1. July 1802 and the 12th Messidor of the year 10; † 17th February 1867 ) was a French cabinetmaker and porcelain painter . He is considered to be the inventor of the porcelain inlays that were painted.

The finesse of Rivart's work in inlaying porcelain never found a match. The furniture inlaid with porcelain inlays is rare and testifies to the inventiveness of the second half of the 19th century.

In 1900, the World's Fair, which traces the “record of the century”, does not forget the favor that Rivart porcelain gained during the Second Empire when it unveiled one of its tables in the Napoleon III Salon .

history

The beginnings of his life left no traces, so that one assumes years of training in a modest environment. Paris was then economically shaken by the Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars . For carpenters it was a time of important restrictions imposed by the embargo , which favored the use of local woods, typical of the restoration style .

The first pieces of information that can be found seem to confirm these humble beginnings, as Rivart was not found until 1835 in a workshop in the people's quarter at 76 rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin . He moved his workshop twice, in 1837 to 6 rue Sanson and in 1840 to 16 rue de la Folie Méricourt , possibly due to difficulties in establishing his clientele. In his own words, these years were “sacrifices of all kinds”, “an endurance of twenty years”.

In 1848 he developed a new inlay technique and suddenly stepped into the limelight. Its rise began when Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte took power. The second empire, which is proclaimed shortly afterwards, will modernize the country considerably and allow the art industry to flourish. The embargo has been lifted, the exotic woods are reappearing, to the delight of luxury manufacturers.

On September 18, 1849, Rivart registered his 15-year patent for "a type of inlay that can be painted or not in wood, copper , marble and any other stone, as well as on velvet , etc." Under this general heading, he aims at a material that has never been used in marquetry: porcelain . "All research done in this industry so far has been unsuccessful and ... I made this discovery for the first time," says the memorandum accompanying his patent. He fiercely defended the paternity of his invention and patented all subsequent improvements.

Thanks to this process, he is propelled to the forefront of the decorative arts stage. With its technique, porcelain can be added without taking up more space than necessary so as not to hide the beauty of the wood. This invention, of which he defended the property, opens the doors to collaboration with important artists and thus gains access to prestigious medals. The most important will be Jean-Pierre Tahan , the emperor's carpenter, but he also works with Alphonse Giroux . At the time, his studio was at 1 Rue de Normandie in a dynamic district of old Paris.

The World's Fairs will be extremely profitable for Rivart. He had his idea just in time to take part in these international meetings, which were initiated by Prince Albert in London in 1851. For this historic event, he enjoys the collaboration of Victor Paillard , a sculptor who is precisely in charge of overseeing the statue of Queen Victoria . The two artists presented an imposing cabinet made of ebony and mahogany that used the porcelain painting, its shadows and its clarity to their advantage. The furniture is bought by the Duke of Caumont de La Force and receives 16 medals, including the award medal.

Noticed at the 1851 World's Fair, it was therefore praised at the second, held in Paris in 1855 in response to English innovation. Rivart was associated with the large Tahan Manufactory and the painter of the Sèvres Manufactory, Pierre-Joseph Guérou , who was almost twenty years his junior . Critics promote him:

"Rivart brought a very ingenious innovation to the furniture insert: it consists of the application of cut-out painted porcelain, which forms pictures of flowers and in certain cases replaces the usual wooden mosaic in order to entrust the decoration of furniture to respected artists". In particular, his cabinet with three panels "of very beautiful artistic effect" is underlined.

In this important exhibition he showed rosewood furniture and a black marble table, which earned him a first-class medal. His stand was noticed by the imperial couple, from whom he received compliments, and the Empress Eugenie de Montijo subsequently acquired a jewel case, which is now in the museum in Compiègne .

After the World's Fair of 1855, Rivart was regularly asked for important commissions. Two years later, in 1857, Tahan delivered a table decorated with porcelain inlays in the Tuileries Palace . In 1861 Rivart created a table for Count Charles André de Manneville , now in the Cité de la Céramique of Sèvres, and in the following year he contributed to the development of the French Imperial Commission for the 1862 Exhibition.

At that time, Rivart exported 50% of its production. You have to see the effect of the world fairs here, which gave it an international showcase. In particular, he supplied his inlays to Frédéric Roux, a Parisian carpenter who knew the American market well because he had worked in New York .

Julien-Nicolas Rivart died on February 17, 1867, without being able to finish the marble panels covered with porcelain, which he prepared for the world exhibition in Paris that same year. Frédéric Roux presents it on his behalf, but the absence of the inventor is noted. Auguste Luchet, a writer of his generation, witnessed this disappearance and predicted: "Nobody will ever do what he did."

bibliography

• Marc Maison and Emmanuelle Arnauld: Marqueteries virtuoses au XIXe siècle: Brevets d'invention. Rivart, Cremer, Fourdinois, Kayser Sohn et Duvinage , Dijon, Faton, 2012.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ BONHEUR DU JOUR by Jean-Pierre-Alexandre Tahan and Julien Nicolas Rivart. Retrieved July 1, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Maja Lozar Štamcar: A PORCELAIN MARQUETRY TABLE PAINTED BY PIERRE JOSEPH GUÉROU OF PARIS . In: Furniture History . tape 38 , 2002, ISSN  0016-3058 , p. 144-149 , JSTOR : 23409195 .