The definitive Oeben…


Back when this weblog first started, Ronaldo Messina, a reader in Paris, sent me a copy of the book, “Jean-François Oeben” by Rosemarie Stratmann-Döhler. It’s a fantastic resource covering the life and work of Oeben (Thanks Ronaldo!). Dr. Stratmann-Döhler is a German historian, and this book is actually a modified version of her dissertation, some 30 years elapsed. Opening chapters set the stage by detailing Oeben’s contemporaries, and focusing on the details of his life, death, clients, and business. The balance of the book presents the furniture in a series of logical groups: large/small furniture, writing furniture, mechanical tables, etc. There are even sections on the marquetry and ormolu decorations with which he embellished pieces. In the conclusion, Dr. Stratmann-Döhler puts Oeben into the context of his time. 

As good as this book is, the problem for me is that it’s written in French, a language which I neither speak, nor read…

    In anticipation of an upcoming trip to visit four Oeben tables in Paris, Amsterdam, and London, I decided it was time to overcome this impediment, and get serious about my research (as if traveling to Europe to examine four more specimens at great personal expense isn’t serious enough!). Over a period of several weeks, I pasted paragraphs of the text into an on-line translation utility, then assembled the resulting output into a document. It’s a slow, tedious, and at times incoherent process, that resulted in a somewhat intelligible account. Even with these shortcomings, however, I’m happy to have this solution. 

    So, other than for an historical account of Oeben, and his operation why should we care? One appendix catalogues all of the furniture attributed to him, signed and not, and gives their locations as of 2002, the publication date. This goes a long way to answering the question I posed about the remaining tables.

    Incidentally, Dr. Stratmann-Döhler published another germane article, “Design and mechanisms on the furniture of Jean-François Oeben” in the journal Furniture History vol. 9, 1973. It provides an overview of the mechanisms employed across the different types of Oeben furniture.