Pier Table

Inscription: Inscribed on the back side of the marble top “Connelly.”

Marking: Stamped twice, once on the top of each of the stumps or blocks inside the front corners “H. LANNUIER/NEW-YORK.”

By tradition, this table and its mate in a private collection, were owned by Jacques-Donatien “James” Leray de Chaumont (1760—1840), and had been used in his mansion in Jefferson County, near Watertown, New York. It is believed Leray transported the table to France when he returned there in the 1830s. The Lannuier pier table was rediscovered in France the 1990s, and purchased at Christie’s-New York, sale 7214 (January 26, 1991), lot 310, by the current owner, Juliana Terian, and her late husband, Peter Terian. The table was made for Lannuier’s most important client, Jacques-Donatien “James” Leray de Chaumont (1760—1840). Leray was the scion of a wealthy, titled family of French merchants operating in the West Indies. James’s father, Jacques, was Benjamin Franklin’s landlord at the magnificent Hotel Valentinois in Passy during his eight-year term as America’s first minister to France. Franklin and the Chaumont family were very close. James’s father commissioned Joseph-Siffred Duplessis to paint a portrait of Franklin, now known as the “fur collar” portrait (32.100.132) in the Met’s collection. During the American Revolution, the elder Chaumont was the leading supplier of goods and munitions to the Colonists. James learned to speak English from Franklin, John Adams, and others in the circle of American diplomats that resided at the family’s Passy estate from 1785 to 1790. In 1788, Leray became an American citizen and married Grace Coxe, sister of Tench Coxe, of New Jersey. He later purchased real estate in America, including nearly six hundred thousand acres in New York. In 1793, Leray invested in the purchase of land in the Adirondacks bordered by Lake Ontario with the intention to establish a colony for French citizens escaping the Reign of Terror. In 1806, he built a house near present-day Watertown, New York, north of the Black River, and attempted to build a small village, roads, and waterways to accompany the home. James retired to “Leraysville” in 1816. At this time, his son, Vincent, is believed to have purchased furniture from Lannuier in the Late Empire style, including two pairs of figural pier tables and a columnar pier table with term figures. The inventory of James Leray’s estate, dated January 19, 1841 (Archives Nationales de Paris, ET/XXVI/1091), reveals that, at the time of his death, he was living with his son Vincent in Paris in an apartment in the rue de Varenne, and that his sole possessions were a wardrobe and its contents. According to a 1992 letter from a past owner (now deceased) that was received by Leslie Keno, formerly of Sotheby’s, Leray left the Lannuier furniture to his French mistress, the young actress Eugenie de Bouchart, after which the furniture descended in her family until 1991, when it was brought to auction at Christie’s-New York.