Paul Sormani secrétaire à abattant Paris, circa 1875

D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Mobilier Français du XIX Siècle, pp. 581-590

C. Payne, 19th Century European Furniture, pp. 41-42

P. Lecoules, Art Mobilier Parisien 1850-1900, p. 30, for the illustration of a similar model but with marquetry panels by Dasson.

P. Kjellberg, Le Mobilier Français du XVIIIe Siècle, 2002, p. 327; J. Focarino, Furniture in the Frick Collection, Vol. V,  pp. 282-293; F. J. B. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection: Furniture,  pp. 182-185, no. 104, for illustrations of similar 18th century models by Jean-François Dubut.

P. Devinoy & G. Janneau, Le Meuble léger en France, Paris, 1952, pp. 113, 349, fig. 60.

Y. Brunhammer, Cent Chefs-d'Oeuvre du Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris 1964, p. 71

The Sormani firm purchased the models for this secrétaire at the sale of Dasson's effects in 1894. In the style of Jean-Francois Dubut (d. 1778), a furniture maker and dealer working from the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, this model was popular in both the 18th and 19th centuries. An early reference for the shape can be seen in the pair circa 1835 by Edward Holmes Baldock (q.v.) in the Frick Collection (15.5.35 & 15.5.36). The Frick pair, however, have end-cut marquetry foliage in kingwood on a quarter-veneered tulipwood ground. Although Baldock is noted by Ted Dell in the Frick Catalogue as having made at least nine examples, the construction of the present lot is however typically French, and distinctly and expensively different with its exotic Japanese lacquer panels. Thus, the present lot has more in common with one originally made by Jean-Francois Leleu (Master 1764), in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. This shape was also made by Bernard II Vanrisamburgh.

Three further examples are in the Jones Collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Another by the Franco-British maker Georges-Alphonse Monbro, is in the Bowes Museum, Baranard Castle, County Durham.

A close variant, attributed to Dubut, sold in The Wildenstein Collection, Christie's, London, December 14, 2005, lot 65, £36,000.