A large and impressive gilt bronze-mounted kingwood and tulipwood bureau à cylindre Continental, mid 19th century

the cylinder beneath three drawers, two with later Chubb locks one numbered 1741531 and the other 1741530, opening to walnut filing compartments and drawers and a gilt-tooled green leather lined writing slide, the side zephyr and flora holding four-light candle branches, the cylinder fronted by a trophy emblematic of literature, the frieze with three large drawers, the back centered by the mask of a water nymph flanked by trophies emblematic of Architecture and Science, raised on cabriole legs terminating in lion paw feet and headed by female masks to the four corners, each side fitted with a writing slide

Property from the Marshall Galleries, Los Angeles, Sotheby's, New York, December 15, 1984, lot 41

Property from the Estate of Rochelle Sepenuk, Sothebys's New York, October 21, 2008, lot 193

The design of the present magnificient bureau à cylindre, adorned by the figures of Apollo and Calliope as figural candelabra, was arguably inspired by Oeben and Riesener's cylinder desk, universally referred to as the Bureau du Roi, one of the most famous pieces of 18th century French furniture. The construction of this extraordinary piece was started in 1760 by Jean-François Oeben, finally delivered to the King in May 1769 after its completion by Oeben's successor, Jean-Henri Riesener. The original model desk, which took numerous craftsman and nine years of painstaking work to bring it to perfection, dominated Riesener's work during this period. The magnificent Bureau du Roi was originally in Louis XV's study at Versailles. Seemingly too much a reminder of the ancien régime, it was relegated to the office of Napoléon's assistant in the Tuileries in an inventory of 1807. It was moved to the grand salon at the Palais des Tuileries for a short time until transferred to Saint-Cloud by Empress Eugénie in 1855. In August 1870 it was at the Musée du Louvre before being finally returned to Versailles in 1957.