18th Century French Walnut Armoire,

A Louis XIV Walnut Armoire with Pointes de Diamant Panels, 

The arched and deeply moulded chapeau de gendarme cornice above a pair of panelled doors, each with three fielded panels carved in bold pointes de diamant, the upper panels centred by a faceted star, the middle and lower panels with radiating diamond-point sunbursts, divided by serpentine moulded rails, hung on long steel fiches à chapeau and with a pierced steel escutcheon and later silk tassel key, flanked by canted stiles carved with small foliate motifs and a moulded oval cartouche, the sides similarly panelled with diamond-point lozenges, on a moulded plinth and block feet.

The interior fitted with shelving upholstered in yellow Moire fabric

French, Probably Périgord or Guyenne, Early 18th Century

Faceted pointes de diamant, carved to catch light across the surface of the timber, are among the most striking decorative devices of French provincial joinery. Introduced under Louis XIII, the motif remained in favour in the south-west, particularly in Périgord, Quercy and the Bordelais, well into the 18th century, where regional workshops developed an especially inventive vocabulary of stars, sunbursts and interlocking lozenges. The present armoire combines this conservative ornament with the arched cornice and serpentine rails of the Régence, a fusion typical of the region's gradual absorption of Parisian taste. Armoires of this kind were among the most important possessions of a household, frequently commissioned for a marriage and handed down through generations