A brass-mounted and brass inlaid tortoiseshell and ebony veneered première-partie boulle marquetry bureau mazarin Louis XIV, early 18th century

with a rectangular gilt-bronze-banded top, above a frieze drawer and a fall-front, flanked on either side by three bowed drawers with three shaped aprons with gilt-finials, with projecting scrolled brackets on the angles on `s' scrolled legs' joined by a pierced `x' form stretcher, on toupie feet, the whole inlaid with berainesque motifs; restorations

The top of this bureau mazarin is inlaid in the Berainesque manner after engravings by Jean Bérain (1637-1711). From around 1670, he was employed by the Crown and  in 1674 he became architecte dessinateur de la Chambre et du Cabinet du Roi. His designs were characterised by grotesques and included canopies suspended by fantastical term figures and figures of classical deities amongst fauns sometimes replaced by  Chinamen with monkeys amidst scrolling foliage. His influence on furniture especially incorporating boulle marquetry was profound. 

A related bureau with very similar inlay and tasselled frieze was sold as lot 23, Sotheby's, Paris, 18th June 2002 (42,000 euros). Another related bureau was sold as lot 26, in these Rooms, on 12th December 2001.