Charles X Style Fruitwood and Ebonized Writing Table

Contemporary glass and wood centre table. Thick glass top resting on four curved glass supports on wood plinth. Glass top thickness is 3/4 inch.

Very impressive Regency style round center table. The beautiful round brown thick marble top over veneered frieze over carved pedestal with platform and gilt bronze lion feet...

Italian Modern style two drawer console table with saber legs. imposing and unique

Outstanding French Louis XV style gilt bronze mounted parquetry mounted hexagonal top center table, 1st half of the 20th century. Meticulous attention has been given to every detail...

Unique 19th century Louis XV style finely carved oval oak dining table. The parquetry top on unusually curved frieze carved with shell and acanthus motif on eight cabriole legs endin...

Spectacular Italian neoclassical style parcel-gilt beachwood and marble console table, late 19th-early 20th century. The moulded purple and Rouge marble top is over a neoclassical...

Charles x style writing table with swans inlaid with arabesques drawer forming writing, twentieth century, slot on the tray of dimension height 81 cm ...

This lovely Art Deco table or writing desk circa 1930 is expertly handcrafted from maple wood and features a rectangular tabletop with curved edges and tall apron, a trestle base and...

A fine Victorian kingwood and box wood strung mounted ladies writing table in the French taste, the central draw with an oval panel of semi precio...

The tabletop of this 18th century Spanish table is one single wide plank, which over the years has warped slightly, adding an attractive twist to the surface and creating a piece of furniture with unique character. The deeply-coved spool turned leg...

A magnificent and very rare Régence style marquetry inlaid grand bureau plat or writing desk. Inscribed to the carcass 'Moreaux 72'. Dating from the second half of the nineteenth century this magnificent and very rare bureau plat has finely cast rocaille gilt-bronze mounts and is decorated overall with truly breath-taking seventeenth century marquetry, depicting fantastical townscapes, knights, soldiers, hunting and architectural-scenes. Of serpentine rectangular form the top is veneered with superb marquetry panels within a foliate scrolled border and a rocaille shell-cast gilt-bronze surround, both sides featuring a recessed central drawer flanked on each side by a drawer applied with male and female terms, scrolled handles, and reserves with conforming drawers; the bombé sides are centred by foliate scrolls, and the whole raised on cabriole legs headed by cartouches with foliate entwined chutes terminating in scrolled sabots. Of impressive scale this fine bureau plat, in the manner of a partners desk, features working drawers to each side. This model of bureau plat was made by a small number of celebrated Parisian cabinet makers in the second half of the 19th century including Beurdeley, Cremer and Befort Jeune. It is incredibly rare to see this model of bureau plat inlaid in marquetry. The exceptional quality and style indicate the use of older reused marquetry, almost certainly dating from the late 17th century and originating from the Augsburg region of Germany. Similar models but lacking the exceptional marquetry inlay can be found in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch at Bowhill, and the Earl of Normanton at Somerlely. Christopher Payne notes that the latter was part of a pair sold by the London dealer Toms & Luscombe in 1871. He illustrates the present bureau plat in his book ‘European Furniture of the 19th Century’ (p. 88-89), along with two related desks minus the marquetry inlay (p. 92 -93). The exceptional and highly complex marquetry inlay and intarsia work, that sets this important bureau plat apart from other extant examples, would originally have formed the decorative panels of a late 17th century table cabinet, almost certainly ascribable to the Augsburg region of Germany. Augsburg emerged from the middle of the 16th century as the German centre of luxury cabinet making for the international market. In particular, the development of marquetry contributed to this prominent position, favoured by the ready availability of indigenous woods and the reputation that Augsburg had the best craftsmen able to cut thin layers of veneers in the most intricate motifs (C.S. Wood, ‘The Perspective Treatise in Ruins: Lorenz Stöer, Geometria et perspectiva, 1567’, Studies in the History of Art, no. 59, p. 246). Table cabinets, conceived as a form of Wunderkammer or cabinets of curiosities, were intended as repositories for all manner of wondrous and exotic objects and by the 1550s the grandest cabinets in Europe were being made in Augsburg. Decorated almost entirely with sumptuous marquetry, often depicting perspective views of ruins and fantastical townscapes, they become by the 1590s highly regarded as important diplomatic gifts. Fine Augsburg marquetry panels remained popular throughout the ages and were frequently re-used to create or embellish new items of furniture, such as this magnificent bureau plat. Their inclusion was not only for their highly decorative appeal, but to contemporary eyes, a means by which to imbue a new creation with a sense of true historical authenticity. The importance of such panels is often reflected in the high cost involved in repurposing them. A fine example of this is the celebrated 17th century cabinet on stand...

A fine French kidney shaped bureau plat desk, having an inset beige leather top. Two side drawers over cabriole legs with ormolu mounts.