Empire style Mahogany secretaire abattant, circa 1840

A very good quality late 19th Century French Louis XVI style Mahogany tambour bureau, having a marble top with a brass gallery. Pigeon hole compartments and drawers within, gilded om...

A very good quality late 19th Century French Bon hour du jour. The pair of doors above having wonderful parquetry inlaid diamond shaped inlay, a sliding tablet opening to write upon...

A dramatic Charles X fall front secretary in astounding burled mahogany veneer. The original fossilized marble top is supported by an elliptical molding. The main body contains one u...

Gorgeous antique secretaire a abattant, desk, French Empire style, mahogany, gilt, 1800s, 19th century! This stunning French Empire style marble-top mahogany fall-front desk, 19th century, projecting frieze drawer, with gilt metal crossed sword pulls, turned column supports flanking the fall-front panel, opening to gilt embossed leather writing surface, mirrored interior gallery, over dual cabinet doors, opening to reveal three drawers, above lower apron drawer, approximately 56.5" height 37.25" width, 17" depth. Dominated by Greco-Roman models, the Empire style - spare, noble, massive - had a studied dignity consistent with Napoleonic majesty. The characteristic furniture types were a bit stiff but imposing: their flat surfaces and sharp corners, together with their lack of moldings, produced an effect of grandeur that was not without beauty as per Timothy Corrigan The Empire style was deliberately propagandistic, and embraced what was most monumental in ancient art as suitable analogies to the new French Empire. Napoleon imposed a tyrannical centralization on artistic production, decreeing that it would be subject to control from Paris and overseen by the architects Percier and Fontaine...