Identification of the desk in its original state In its original form as a Mazarin desk, the desk presented here most probably corresponds to the one that belonged to Monsieur de Montullé. In his sale in Paris on 22 December 1783, in a chapter entitled ‘Meubles de Boule’, the only piece of furniture in the sale by André- Charles Boulle is described as follows:
311 Un très beau bureau de Boule, première partie, à deux faces ; il est composé de six tiroirs ornés de poignées de masques de femmes, et bordés chacun en bronze ; les deux côtés en retour sont aussi décorés de masques de femmes ; les pieds, de forme chantournée avec entrejambe, ornés chacun de rinceaux d’ornemens ; il est couvert d’un velours verd, bordé d’un carderon de bronze. Hauteur 2 pieds 7 pouces, largeur 3 pieds 9 pouces 6 lignes, profondeur 2 pieds 1 pouce. Vendu 400 livres à Lebrun
This essential document allows us to draw a number of important conclusions.
Before addressing them, it is necessary to substantiate and support the accuracy of this comparison.
A fundamental element remains the very small number of Mazarin desks with six drawers; the overwhelming majority of these desks are constructed with five or seven drawers surrounding a kneehole cupboard. The very precise description in the sale catalogue supports this identification, indicating the desk is ‘double-sided’, though without explicitly describing the decoration on the back. Furthermore, the dimensions of the desk with the top removed (H: 80 cm, W: 118.7 cm, D: 62 cm) are, to the nearest inch, the dimensions of the 1783 sale. These small differences can be explained simply by a possible reduction in height when the upper case was adapted and by the presence of a top with a greater overhang. It is also interesting to note that the top of Monsieur de Montullé’s desk in 1783 was simply covered with green velvet and not, as one might have imagined, with a rich marquetry of tortoiseshell and engraved brass. Stages and methods of production of the Desk
Two very distinct stages give this piece of furniture its present appearance. Observations made during its dismantling reveal a certain number of elements which, when put into perspective, allow us to put forward a convincing hypothesis.
It is highly likely the slant front dates from the Louis XIV period, while the frame of the small oak drawers inside dates from 1760 at the earliest. The date of the transformation remains to be determined, bearing in mind that the earliest slant-front secretaires are presumed to date from the 1730s.
The most plausible hypothesis remains the transformation of a Mazarin desk decorated on all sides by removing the marquetry and bronze panel at the back to make a slant front and removing the marquetry at the back of the legs, probably undertaken after the 1783 sale by a merchant like Julliot who specialised in this type of modification. The general principle behind this project was to conserve and re-use as many old elements as possible.
The auctioning of the Mazarin desk from the Montullé collection in 1783 and its sale for the relatively large sum of 400 livres to one of the most important dealers of the time makes it quite plausible that it was transformed into a slope-front secretary from 1783 onwards with the aim of reselling it under enhanced conditions. It enabled a Mazarin desk, whose form was out of fashion by the Louis XVI era, to be brought up to date by being converted into a sloping desk - the merchant made a strategic calculation here. Although customers were now more inclined towards bureaux plats, roll-top or slant-front desks, this adaptation made it a highly saleable piece of furniture in the 1780s, thanks in particular to the continuing attraction of tortoiseshell marquetry and the growing fascination with the works of André-Charles Boulle.
The present bureau is found in the home of the banker and collector François-Michel Harenc de Presle (1710-1802) in his private mansion, where several ‘magnificent’ Boulle pieces are mentioned by Thiéry in his Guide des amateurs et des étrangers voyageurs à Paris, including a ‘rich and very beautiful secretary desk, the bottom of which is a sixdrawer commode’.
This desk is again described in the two successive sales organised in 1792 n° 402 (unsold) and 1795 n°252.
« 402 : Un riche & tres beau secrétaire, don’t le bas forme de commode à six tiroirs à mascarons de femmes et poignées ; terminé sur le devant par quatre pieds en console à rinceaux & fleurons en broze avec entre jambes, le dessus abattant enrichi de bas reliefs dont Apollon faisant écorcher Marsias ; & deux figures des saisons. Le tout à fond d’écaille à encadrement de bronze doré d’or moulu ; Hauteur 19 pouces, largeur 43 pouces, profonfeur 23 p. »
The theme of Apollo
This theme forms a unifying thread for the decoration of this piece of furniture. The front and sides are decorated with female masks whose hair is made of laurel leaves, representing the goddess Daphne who, in order to escape from Apollo, is transformed into a laurel tree. This plant would henceforth be associated with Apollo and would become an emblem of glory as the laurel crown. This legend from Ovid’s Metamorphoses is interpreted as a victory of chastity over carnal love.
Apollo is also illustrated, again in the Metamorphoses, through the myth of Apollo and Marsyas. As punishment for daring to compete with Apollo to determine who was the better musician, Marsyas was hung from a tree and flayed alive. This bronze by André-Charles Boulle depicts the scene, with Apollo still holding his lyre and pointing at the executioner preparing to torture Marsyas, whose flute lies at his feet.
André-Charles Boulle
The association of the two themes featuring Apollo, on the one hand with Marsyas and on the other with Daphne, are themes already associated with Boulle on a marquetry cabinet sold by Philip’s on 5 December 2001 in New York (very close to two cabinets in the Wallace Collection, London, F61 and F62). The group of Marsyas is identical to ours, while the theme of Daphne is illustrated by Apollo chasing Daphne as she turns into a tree. For another perspective on these bronzes in the work of André-Charles Boulle, see also an armoire in the Royal Collection, Windsor Castle.
Other elements of Boulle’s repertoire include the design of the stretcher, particularly the scrolling wave motif, which frames the central section on all four sides. This motif appears very clearly in several of the engravings after André-Charles Boulle published by Mariette. Another characteristic element is the scroll of the foot, which is found repeatedly in Boulle’s work, notably on his pedestal tables, certain cartels and, by extension, the brackets framing the corners of low bookcases. The bronzes of Spring and Winter (sometimes enriched with a brazier) are also leitmotifs in Boulle’s work. The masks found on the sides and below the two rows of drawers on the right and left of the front are also used in a simplified way to support the base on which the figure of Louis XIV rests in the Louvre’s pedestal cabinets (OA5458) as well as on a certain number of similar cabinets transformed at the end of the 18th century into meubles d’appui (it should be noted in passing that these cabinets originally had stretcher platforms identical to that of our desk). The masks are here enriched with laurel leaves, allowing the identification of the figure with the nymph Daphne. They also adorn a toilet box illustrated in A. Pradère, Les ébénistes français de Louis XIV à la Révolution, fig 41, p.86 and above all the handles of the extraordinary rosewood commode sold by Sotheby’s Monaco on 6 February 1978, lot 147 (see Pradère, op.cit., p.107, ill.).
If one examines the entirety of each side panel, the mask of Daphne, in a gilt bronze frame with volutes and foliage, is exactly the same as the one that adorns another marquetry desk attributed to Boulle in the Metropolitan Museum of New York (Ogden Mills donation), the counterpart of which was sold by Christie’s New York on 2 November 2000, lot 179. Finally, the side panels on the upper part are taken directly from the engraving preserved in the Arsenal and published in the catalogue (no. 89 d) of the Boulle exhibition at the Frankfurt Museum. This engraving is signed J. Boulle.f. for Jean-Philippe Boulle. It consists of two opposing dolphin heads and scrolls that can be found on the top of two rectangular tables made by André-Charles Boulle for the Château de la Ménagerie in 1701, now in the collections of the Duke of Buccleuch at Bowhill Castle in Scotland.
The comparison with the drawing by Jean Bérain in Stockholm (see illustration) sheds light on the mutual influences between the ornamentalist and the cabinetmaker.
Our desk by André-Charles Boulle has a very similar base, despite the fact that there is no crosspiece in the centre. This original model can also be compared to the famous painting of the Regent and his son in a study (repr. in J. de La Gorce, Bérain, Paris, 1986, p. 41). It should be borne in mind that the catalogue of the Montullé sale firmly and definitively attributes the Mazarin desk to André-Charles Boulle.
Jean-Baptiste-Francois de Montullé (1721- 1787)
Cousin of the famous collector Jean de Jullienne, Jean-Baptiste-François de Montullé quickly became an advisor and then secretaire des Commandements of Queen Marie Leczinska, and then of the young dauphine Marie-Antoinette. Owner of the famous dye factory developed by his cousin Jullienne, he was already mentioned in 1762 in Hébert’s Dictionnaire pittoresque et historique as an honorary member of the Académie royale de peinture et sculpture. He had a large collection of paintings and sculpture which was sold during his lifetime in 1783.
François-Michel Harenc de Presle (1710-1802)
The son of a banker and a banker himself, the contents of his private mansion in the rue du Sentier have been the subject of a very detailed study by A. Pradère (op.cit.), who invites the reader to discover the interior of a great collector’s residence in keeping with the taste of the 1760s to the 1780s. Boulle furniture stands next to neoclassical terracottas, porcelain and lacquerware from the Orient, while paintings from Northern schools adorn the walls.