AN IMPRESSIVE LOUIS XV STYLE BUREAU PLAT /DESCRIPTION - AFTER THE BUREAU DU ROI AT VERSAILLES BY J.-F. OEBEN AND J.-H. RIESENER
The rectangular top, with the outline of an arc-en-arbalète, is fitted with an embossed leather writing surface and is fitted with four short drawers on the moulded apron with opposing false drawers. It stands on cabriole legs fitted with oval biscuit panels on the sides representing the Three Graces and inlaid with marquetry panels depicting bouquets of ribbons, foliage and floral tendrils, shells, coral and draped pearls, all with berry and foliage tendrils of ribbons, the cabriole legs fitted with lion skin loops hanging down to form spiral patterned clogs.
Footnotes
The Bureau du Roi at Versailles is perhaps the most famous piece of furniture in the world and certainly one of the most luxurious furniture creations of the 18th century. Louis XV ordered this cylinder-topped desk from Jean-François Oeben (1721-1763), who had already completed the design and much of the production by the time of his early death in 1763. Jean-Henri Riesener (1734-1806), who married Oeben's widow and took over his business, completed the desk in 1769. The final price was 62,000 livres, one of the highest prices ever paid for a piece of furniture up to that time (for comparison, the average annual salary of a worker in the 18th century was almost 300 livres).
The office kept Riesener busy for the rest of his career, as evidenced by his numerous invoices for polishing and cleaning the bronzes and maintaining the extremely complicated mechanisms (the cylinder apparently opened and the writing slide moved forward, all with a simple turn of a key - modified in the 19th century, no one has since been able to reconstruct the original mechanism). At the height of the revolutionary excitement, Riesener even covered the royal double-L monogram...
Category
20th Century French Bronze Tables
