LOUIS XVI STYLE A gilt-bronze mounted mahogany and satiné veneered and bleu turquin marble pedestal, France, last quarter 19th century, in the manner of Jean-Henri Riesener

D. Alcouffe, Furniture Collection in the Louvre, Dijon, 1993, vol I, p. 286, no. 96

The present pedestal is a copy of the model attributed to Jean-Henri Riesener (received Master in 1768) executed in 1785, now in the permanent collection of the Musée du Louvre in Paris. This was one of the most popular of the 18th century models admired by the finest cabinetmakers in the second half of the 19th century and it is interesting to note that a barometer version, also in the Louvre, was made by the cabinetmaker Guillaume Grohé in the mid-19th century. François Linke also reproduced this model under archive number 852.

Along with André-Charles Boulle and Charles Cressent, Riesener was arguably one of the three greatest French ébénistes of the 18th century. As a young man, he entered the workshop of Jean-François Oeben (maître in 1761 but previously active as an ébéniste du Roi), eventually taking over the workshop after Oeben's death in 1763, and marrying his widow some four years later. He is renowned for having completed the famous bureau du Roi Louis XV, designed and started by Oeben and made with the collaboration of another young apprentice in the workshop, Jean-François Leleu.