A FINE AND LARGE LOUIS XVI STYLE GILT BRONZE-MOUNTED MAHOGANY CENTER TABLE FRANCE, CIRCA 1875

inset with a rectangular marble top above three frieze drawers

Sotheby's New York, April 27, 2006, lot 241

P. Hughes, The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Furniture, II, London, 1996, pp. 1142-1145 (F320). 

This exceptional writing table is almost identical to the great table acquired for Lord Hertford in 1853 after the sale of the collection of the 2nd Marquess of Abercorn at Bentley Priory, now part of the Wallace Collection, London (F320). Dated by Hughes to 1830-35 (op cit., p. 1142) and presumed to be copied after several tables of the early Neoclassical period that were popular on the London market at that time, it is now thought that the Wallace table was part of a suite of furniture commissioned by Charles-Alexandre, Duke of Lorraine and Governor-General of the Austrian Netherlands from 1744 until 1780. Likely created by the menuisier Godtfried Weber, and supplied together with two console tables, two settees, and twelve chairs with mounts by the court goldsmith Michel Dewez (1742-1804), the table formed part of the classically-inspired refurbishment of the winter apartments in the palace at Brussels undertaken by the Duke in the 1770s. The furniture complemented the new gilt-bronze trophies that adorned the walls, the parquetry floor, and the marquetry wall panels supplied by David Roentgen, replacing earlier tapestries. The overall decorative effect, very different from the previous scheme, encapsulated the prevailing neoclassical fashion of the time.

Though remarkably similar, the Wallace desk is larger than the present table and its frieze is hung with gilt bronze foliate swags matching those surmounting the legs. Similar to those on furniture made for Lalive de Jully after designs by Le Lorrain (see Svend Eriksen, Early Neoclassicism in France, London, 1974, pl. 85), comparable swags also feature on a writing table that appears in an engraved portrait of the Duc de Choiseul, executed in 1770 by E. Fessard after Van Loo (Eriksen, op.cit. pl. 462).  The frieze mounts on the present table are comparable with those on a bureau plat made by Jean-Francois Leleu, circa 1775, sold from the collection of Mrs. Marella Agnelli, Sotheby’s, New York, October 23, 2004, lot 134.  Finally, the overlapping imbricated discs running down the legs are comparable with those found on a bureau plat by Pierre Garnier in the Huntington Collection, California - a fine copy of which, by Alfred Beurdeley, forms lot 335 in this sale.

Recorded in the Large Drawing Room at Hertford House in 1870 as a ‘Costly Centre Writing Table, Louis XVI finely mounted in chased ormolu with drawers, top covered with velvet', the Wallace table was exhibited at the Bethnal Green museum between 1872-1875 as part of an exhibit of paintings, furniture and other works of art belonging to Sir Richard Wallace, Bart. The table was thus exposed to a wider public, which likely provided the impetus for certain copies, including the present table - the exceptional quality of which, though unsigned, would suggest manufacture by a leading Parisian firm.