Stamped four times H. LANNUIER / NEW – YORK, this bureau was made by Charles- Honoré Lannuier (1779-1819) in le gout antique, an early 19^th century style that favored heavier architectural forms with ornamentation inspired by ancient furniture excavated from archaeological sites.  It is one of the few known case pieces by Lannuier that survives. In keeping with his practice, it is made of the finest quality mahogany veneers with elaborate cast brass ornamentation and an original white Carrara marble top, which he had shipped at high cost from Italy. The bureau was included in the exhibition catalogue Honoré Lannuier, Cabinetmaker from Paris: The Life and Work of a French Ébeniste in Federal New York by Peter Kenny, Frances Bretter and Ulrich Leben.

Very few pieces of New York furniture in le gout antique are known and nearly all are by Lannuier. Two other related mahogany bureaus by Lannuier in this style were included in the Lannuier exhibition and illustrated in the accompanying catalogue. One with two partial printed labels in a private collection similarly displays vibrant mahogany veneers, brass foliate-cast capitals, escutcheons and a white Carrara marble top.¹ It rests atop carved animal paw feet and retains original brass lion’s-mask drawer pulls.  The second bureau was also stamped four times with the same stamp as the present example.² It was made with doors, paw feet, and the brass lion’s-mask pulls as well as the same brass capitals and escutcheons as this bureau.

For eight additional examples of mahogany furniture in Lannuier’s le gout antique oeuvre, see a bedstead in a private collection bearing the same four stamps;³ a card table at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with his stamp on the front rail;⁴ and a nearly identical table at Winterthur Museum stamped twice and owned by Dolly Madison as part of the White House furnishings.⁵  Four pier tables with stamped and printed labels include two in private collections, one in the collection of the White House, and another on loan to the White House.⁶ A pier table that is nearly identical to the one in the collection of the White House is attributed to Lannuier.⁷ It was owned by Byam Kerby Stevens and his wife Frances Gallatin, who married in 1830.

¹ See Peter Kenny, Frances Bretter, and Ulrich Leben, Honoré Lannuier, Cabinetmaker from Paris: The Life and Work of a French Ébeniste in Federal New York (New York, 1998), p. 23 and 202, plate 9, cat. 44.
² See ibid, p. 203, cat. 46.
³ See ibid, p. 198, cat. 2.
⁴ See ibid, p. 205, cat. 53 and p. 179, pl. 94.
⁵ See ibid, p. 206, cat. 54 and p. 74, pl. 31.
⁶ See ibid, p. 215, cat. 92 and p. 73, pl. 30; p. 216, cat. 95 and p. 167, pl. 84; p. 216, cat. 94 and p. 68, pl. 28; and p. 215, cat. 93 and p. 162, pl. 79.
⁷ See p. 216, cat. 96.