BY JEAN-HENRI RIESENER, CIRCA 1780

Details

A LOUIS XVI ORMOLU-MOUNTED MAHOGANY BUREAU PLAT
BY JEAN-HENRI RIESENER, CIRCA 1780
The top fitted with tan-leather writing surface, and surrounded by an ormolu border, with a sliding writing-surface to each side, above a large central drawer with ring handles and escutcheon, flanked by two smaller drawers, on square tapering legs mounted with stringing, surmounted with leaf tip mounts, terminating in acanthus sabots, stamped 'J.H.RIESENER'
30 3/8 in. (77 cm.) high; 63 1/8 in. (160.5 cm.) wide; 31 in. (78.5 cm.) deep

Special Notice

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Brought to you by

Peter Horwood

phorwood@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2359

Lot Essay

Jean-Henri Riesener, maître in 1768.
This impressive bureau plat in mahogany stamped by the celebrated ébéniste Jean-Henri Riesener is closely related to a desk sold from the collection of Mr and Mrs Dean Johnson, sold at Sotheby’s, New York, 9 December 1972, which was formerly part of the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle. The overall design is also comparable to lower part of a bureau à cylindre delivered by the ébéniste for the petit appartement of Queen Marie-Antoinette in the palais des Tuileries, now in the Louvre (inv. OA 5226), and to a desk illustrated in A. Pradère, Les Ebénistes Français de Louis XIV à la Révolution, 1989, p. 378, ill. 456. Another desk of similar tripartite design, also in mahogany but with moldings instead of ormolu frame, is in the Louvre (inv. num. OA 6637).

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