Felix Pecheux Neo-Renaissance Figural Carved Walnut Cabinet

fourth quarter 19th century, by Felix Jules Pecheux (1843-aft. 1919), Paris, of large scale, the projecting cornice over a hooded well with carved panels and arches on turned supports, flanked by a pair of cupboards with elaborately carved doors, each cupboard supported by a pair of jesters carved in full relief, on a base with four doors with urn-carved panels, each flanked by fluted and guilloche-carved pilasters, the ends with open niches on segmented columns with Ionic capitals. One door panel carved "F. Pecheux S.T.R."
h. 125-3/4", w. 119-1/2", d. 26-1/2"

Notes: Felix Jules Pecheux was born on January 18, 1843 in Joigny, Yonne, the son of carpenter Felix Prudent Pecheux and his wife Louise Godard. He undoubtedly learned much of his craft from his father, but also evidently studied in Cologne, Germany, where he was living at the time of his marriage banns to Henriette Isabelle Acchart in 1875. Soon after his marriage in Paris he was engaged by Maison Girard, purveyors of artistic furniture and tapestries.
By 1883, Pecheux was the director of the house ("[We cannot draw too much attention here of the Parisian high-life to the vast and luxurious stores at 61 avenue de Wagram, where the most diverse styles and most precious pieces of furniture stand side-by-side]" gushed the April 2, 1883 edition of L'Etoile Artistique), and in 1884 he assumed ownership of the business. His magnificent carved suites were showcased in journals and exhibits of the day, and even by the end of the century, when such monumental architectural revival styles had become wildly eclectic and all but out of favor, Le Select noted in 1895 that "[The great Pecheux-Girard house has understood this error of false taste and, faithful to its principles, it strives, in the composition of furniture, to impress its customers with these general principles: simplicity in beauty, and respect for form in even the least important objects. It is necessary to appropriate the furniture of each room . . . to seek to put in the different parts of the whole a perfect harmony, which strikes us at once even before we have studied the details.]"
A February 1906 sale at Hotel Druout featured a dining suite by Pecheux, remarkably similar in description to the present lot: "[Beautiful Renaissance style dining room in carved walnut, composed of: a large two-part sideboard, the upper section supported by colonnettes, opening in the middle to two small doors decorated with figurines of pages and chatelaines, with niches on the sides, the bottom section opening to four small doors, those in the center decorated with the heads of characters among ornaments; a sideboard of the same work; a table with extensions and twelve chairs covered in needlepoint tapestry with characters and animals in landscapes. From Maison Pecheux-Girard.]" The suite sold for 2700 francs (about $14,000 today).
Changing styles and tastes could not be stayed, however, and Pecheux was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1907. He moved to Buenos Aires where he became a decorator. When he died has not yet been discovered, but ship's manifests show he and his wife traveling from Argentina to London for his decorating clients as late as 1919.

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