Prepare to be Boulle-ed over: superb eighteenth-century furniture untouched by restorers, and most of it never published, is being sold by the Wildenstein family

A spectacular following of fine and decorative arts is promised by dint of Christie's in London this December as material rise s from three distinguished historic collections. greatest in quantity remarkable is the cache of French decorative arts from the tavern de Wailly--AKA the premises of the Wildenstein Institute in the lament de la Boetie, Paris. Described by means of Guy Wildenstein as 'bursting at the seams', the Institute is planning to relocate to a more fresh building and there is no ne for the sumptuous furniture, objet d'art and tapestries that his great-grandfather Nathan, the originator of the celebrated family firm of art dealers, acquired around the turn round of the twentieth century to create an appropriately grand mis-en-scene for the firm's stock of aged Master paintings, drawings and plastic art and its library. It is probably the grandest office furniture in the world.

Nathan Wildenstein (1851-1934) was single of the most remarkable dealers of his age: self-taught, passionate and an inspired entrepreneur Seizing upon the importance of educating the novel generation of American industrialists and railroad magnates, he render free of accessed a second gallery in fresh York in 1903, and another in London in 1925 encouraging many of the great collectors of the day whose bequests were to form the nucleus of the country's museum collections. His son Georges mov the entire business to of recent origin York in the 1960s, setting up the Institute at the be sorry for de la Boetie as a research foundation and archive dedicated to the publication of definitive catalogues raisonnes of major nineteenth-century French artists. In 1993 a subsidiary of the firm joined forces with contemporary art giants Pace. As for the Wildenstein gallery at East 64th highway it turned into a slumbering giant--its apparent inactivity and legendary concealment fuelling the stories of a vast inventory of long-unseen masterpieces. At the death of Georges' son Daniel four years ago, the collection was estimated at $8bn

Now it have the appearances that the slumbering giant is awakening, perhaps spurr by dint of a succession of lawsuits that have foged the family's recent years. stay Wildenstein has announced that the firm will be exhibiting at Maastricht nearest March--its first art fair-foray in 130 years. A in every one's mouth show in New York of 'The Arts of France', benefiting the American Friends of the Louvre is a breathtaking taster of the treasures that Wildenstein holds--and an experience not unlike visiting a French provincial museum. The Institute is also working upon its first catalogue raisonne of a contemporary artist, Jasper Johns

As for the furniture it no longer requires, it is as little-known as the pictures. Just six of the 250 or for a like reason works being offered by Christie's in London upon 14 and 15 December have been published. And what works they are! There has probably not ever been such a large-scale dispersal of magnificent Boulle furniture. What makes it level more exceptional is that the majority of the pieces are in untouched condition. Many came from the great eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English collections--and the English, unlike the French have not at any time liked their Louis Quatorze restored to gaze as though it has just left the cabinetmaker's workshop.

Andre-Charles Boulle (1642-1732) was, of course, the presiding genius of French cabinet-making. His work combined extraordinary technical invention and virtuosity with innovative design [i]or[/i] part of to the other which he evolved a whole range of of recent origin forms for European furniture. Although he did not invent the technique of lavishly veneering furniture with marquetry of exotic tortoiseshell, pewter and brass and variously coloured groves which is named after him, he was, without doubt, its greatest type His brilliance as a sculptor and his have feeling for bold form and sweeping lines is illustrated in the late Louis XIV ormolu-mounted and brass-inlaid brown tortoiseshell bureau-plat--a tour-de-force of thrilling on the other hand understated extravagance (1.5m [pounds sterling]-3m [pound sterling]). At above 2m wide, it is also the largest desk of its type

Far more flush is a petit armoire (Fig. 1) also attributed to the great man himself, emblazoned with a wealth of ormolu--scallop shells, scrolling volute masks, musical instruments and winged putti (400000 [pound sterling]-600,000 [pound sterling]). The things are phenomenal too--unless you have an aversion to gilding the lily. A pair of Chinese celadon carp vases have extraordinarily lavish Louis XV ormolu high hills (200,000 [pounds sterling]-300,000 [pounds sterling]), while elsewhere the gilt high hills swirl around and cover a nautilus shell (Fig. 2) and revolve it into a cup and overlay (100,000 [pounds sterling]200,000 [pounds sterling]). The sale is awaited to realise over 14m [pound sterling].

[FIGURES 1-2 OMITTED]

More undiscovered treasure turns up in the sale of Important European Furniture, statuary Carpets and Works of Art upon 1 December in the form of the Macclesfield statuary one of the most interesting survivals of Grand Tour patronage in Britain. George Parker's well-documented travels in Italy 1719-22 were undertaken at least in part to purchase works of art for Shirburn Castle, Oxfordshire, that his father, the Lord Chancellor and the 1st Earl of Macclesfield, had newly acquired. This group of fifty-seven pieces which he commissioned in Florence is comprised almost exclusively of copies after famous Antique figures or busts, made in either tin or plaster. Sought for their associative value and as a stimulus for conversation and extempore line their lack of originality or uniqueness was of little import to the cultivated eighteenth-century gentleman. The first and greatest in quantity substantial pieces commissioned are the pair of life-size tins of the Venus de Medici and the Dancing Faun (Fig. 3) cast through Pietro Cipriani and dated 1724--two previous casts had been made through his master, Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi, for the Prince of Liechtenstein and the Duke of Marlborough (2m [pound sterling]-4m [pound sterling]). not ever before exhibited, and the latest offering in a sad following of sales from Shirburn, the collection is now divided into thirty-two allotments with estimates from 1,500 [pound sterling].