‘Bureau Plat à Têtes De Guerriers Antiques‘

Descripción

Bureau Plat à Têtes De Guerriers Antiques‘ – An Important Regence Style Gilt-Bronze Mounted Bureau Plat After The Model by Charles Cressent.

This large and elegant bureau plat has a gilt-tooled leather writing surface with gilt-bronze encadrement and scrolling shell mount clasps. The shaped frieze has three drawers to the front and dummy drawers to the rear. The sides are centred by finely cast female masks and the cabriole legs headed by warriors with Roman armour and terminating in acanthus-cast sabots.

Francés, Circa 1890.

This magnificent bureau plat ‘à têtes de guerriers antiques’ is after the model by celebrated Ancien Régime cabinetmaker and sculptor, Charles Cressent (1685-1768) and the quality of its construction and gilt-bronze mounts is indicative of the very best Parisian cabinetwork of the late 19th century.

Charles Cressent is known to have made at least three examples of this desk between 1740- 1745:

One sold from the collections of the Duc de Richelieu in 1788, later in the Houses of Parliament in London, and today in the collections of Grimsthorpe Castle, is illustrated in A. Pradère, ‘French Furniture Makers’, London, 1989, p. 268-9, no. 61. Another in the primary residence of the French President, the Palais de l’Elysée in Paris and a final example in the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon (inv. 2369), having formerly been in the collections of, amongst others, Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild and Baron Alphonse de Rothschild.

A leading ébéniste and sculptor of the late Regence and early rococo periods, Charles Cressent became a master sculptor in 1719. He worked as both ébéniste and sculptor to the Regent, Philippe II, Duc d’Orléans. His furniture was often decorated with plain veneers, usually of satinwood and amaranth, or veneers in patterns of parquetry.

Cressent was best known for the highly sculptural gilt bronze mounts that ornamented his furniture. In order to supervise production and guarantee the quality of his mounts, he employed master casters and gilders in his workshop. This practice broke the strict rules of the French guild system, and the guild prosecuted him for practising the two professions of cabinet making and gilding in the same workshop. In order to pay the resulting fines, Cressent was forced to hold sales of his stock. The catalogues from these auctions, which he wrote himself, provide important evidence to identify his works, as Cressent’s furniture was always unsigned.

The bronze mounts of the warriors with Roman armour, which elegantly defend the corners of this desk, known as bustes des guerriers antiques, were among his most celebrated mounts, and used not only on his model for this bureau plat but on other items such as a ‘cabinet de médailles‘ in the Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon (illustrated A. Pradère, op. cit., p. 128.).

Of enduring appeal, this desk has continued to be the model of choice for connoisseurs, statesmen and collectors since the late 18th century. A 19th century example, comparable to the present desk, can be found in the Salon Doré at the Palais de l’Elysée in Paris – where it has been used by successive Presidents of France.

The model of desk was made by several distinguished 19th century ébénistes, including Paul Sormani, Alfred Beurdeley and François Linke. Given the quality of the present example, and its fine gilt-bronze mounts, it is almost certainly the work of one of these masters.