A Private Collection: Volume 2, Important Furniture and Decoration Inspired by XVIII Century Models

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Lot 93
  • 93

Paul Sormani bureau plat Paris, circa 1875

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Description

  • paul sormani
  • height 31 3/4 in.; width 73 in.; depth 37 3/4 in.
  • 80.7 cm; 185.4 cm; 95.9 cm
bois de violette, noyer within buis stringings, black leather-lined top, three frieze drawers, the reverse similarly-decorated with three false drawers, signed P.SORMANI PARIS / 10,rue Charlot. to the lockplate of the central drawer

Literature

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

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

A. Pradère, French Furniture Makers, p. 131, figs. 90-91, for the 18th century model, circa 1740, by Charles Cressent.

Catalogue Note

This magnificent writing desk is a copy of a bureau plat  by Charles Cressent, circa 1740 made for an as yet unknown patron and now in the Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon. A similar bureau plat appears in the Duc de Richelieu sale in 1788; another, a 19th century copy as the present lot, is used by successive Presidents of France for official business in the Elysée palace in Paris.

Charles Cressent (1685-1768) ran one of the most important cabinetmaking workshops in Paris between 1719 and 1757. Son of the sculpteur du Roi, François Cressent, he trained as a sculptor and was elected maître sculpteur of the Saint-Luc Académie on August 14, 1714. In 1719, Cressent married the widow of the cabinetmaker Joseph Poitou, and thus gained access to the cabinetmaking trade. Shortly after, he was appointed ébéniste ordinaire des palais de SAR Monseigneur le Duc d'Orléans, Régent du royaume.

Cressent's apprenticeship no doubt influenced the extraordinary sculptural quality of his work as an ébéniste. Indeed, the fact that his workshop produced both bronzes and cabinetwork, mostly of exotic woods such as bois satiné, accounts for the remarkably homogeneous nature of his output and its consistently high quality, as he was able to exercise direct control over all aspects of the production.

Cressent sold his production directly to clients from premises located above his workshop at the corner of the rues Notre-Dame-des-Victoire and Joquelet. Among his clients were the Regent Philippe of Orléans, the treasurer of the Navy M. de Selle, Max-Emanuel of Bavaria, and his son Karl-Albrecht.

This model was also made in a larger size by Alfred Beurdeley, sold at the Vente Beurdeley May 6 -9, 1895, lot 285 where is was described as 'Reproduction du célèbre bureau du ministere de la Marine.'