Alfred-Emmanuel-Louis Beurdeley bureau plat en première-partie Paris, circa 1870

citronnier and stained sycomore flower-head trellis-parquetry, both sides with pull-out writing slides with original green velvet surface, two frieze drawers all sides similarly-decorated, the carcass stamped A BEURDELEY / A PARIS to the underside, ivorine plaque MADE IN FRANCE and white-painted number 190 and a further two numbers on paper 246 and 381 to underside.

The Pleasantdale Château, West Orange, New Jersey, sold Christie's, New York, September 10, 1996, lot 319

D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Mobilier Français du XIX Siècle, pp. 75-82

C. Payne, 19th Century European Furniture, pp. 33-34

A. Pradère, French Furniture Makers, p. 325, fig. 371; and F. J. B. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection: Furniture, Vol. II, pp. 302-303, for an illustration of the 18th century model, circa 1775-80, by Mathieu-Guillaume Cramer.

The original desk was made circa 1775-80 by Mathieu-Guillaume Cramer (d.1804), reçu maître en 1771, and one example was formerly in the Derek Fitzgerald Collection (see: Pradère, p. 325).  A renowned cabinetmaker as well as a marchand-mercier, Cramer commissioned furniture from many celebrated contemporaries such as R.V.L.C, Topino, Roussel and Dautriche, to name but a few. His clientele included the Duc de Montmorency, the Duchesse du Châtelet and the Prince de Broglie. Pieces of his oeuvre are now in the Louvre in Paris, the musée Nissim de Camondo in Paris and the Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon.

Gerard Calvet, the recently retired Parisien dealer of high quality 19th century French furniture, whose father knew the Beurdeley family as well as François Linke, has a similar version of the premiere-partie desk, as in the present lot, purchased directly from the Beurdeley family.