A Monumental Louis XVI Gilt Bronze Mounted Mahogany Library Table by Georges Kintz, Circa 1785

Galerie Segoura, Paris, acquired through Thierry Despont, New York 1995

The waning years of Louis XVI's reign witnessed improved commercial relations between France and England, culminating in the Eden commercial treaty of 1786, which led to an increase in British manufacture goods exported to France and also contributed to a more general Anglomanie in fashion, sporting and equestrian events and the decorative arts. In furniture design, this translated into the increasing use of plain mahogany veneers rather than more colourful tropical woods with minimal and simple gilt bronze mounts as the only additional surface embellishment, rather than the more elaboration inlaid decoration and sculptural bronze mounts that had prevailed prior to the mid-1780s. The trend accentuated during austerity of the Revolutionary and Directoire periods, and had been avidly embraced by the leading Parisian cabinetmakers working for the Crown, including Riesener, Weisweiler, Beneman and Molitor. It was also practised by numerous Parisian ébénistes supplying the wider non-royal market, many of them of German origin, such as Richter, Mauter and the author of the present lot Georges Kintz.

Kintz is not known to have worked for the Garde-Meuble supplying furniture to the royal palaces, so the exceptionally rare size of this library table, based on a standard model of smaller writing desks (bureaux plats), suggests it was a special commission for a wealthy private individual such as a financier or merchant possessing a château or hôtel particulier of considerable size with a library large enough to accommodate a piece of this scale, or alternatively a religious or scientific institution which may also have required such a desk.

Interestingly, Louis XVI commissioned several large library tables in gilt-bronze mounted mahogany for Versailles during the 1770s and 80s supplied not through Parisian workshops but rather the estate cabinetmakers employed directly by the Garde-Meuble and based at the palace including Jean Claude Querville and Nicolas René Dubuisson. These include a round table 83 in./210 cm diameter attributed to Querville supplied c.1777 for the bibliothèque du roi and returned to Versailles in 1957 (Daniel Meyer, Le Mobilier de Versailles XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, Dijon 2002, Vol.I no.34 p.132-33).