A LOUIS XVI ORMOLU-MOUNTED MAHOGANY BUREAU A PUPITRE
Lot 159

A LOUIS XVI ORMOLU-MOUNTED MAHOGANY BUREAU A PUPITRE

BY MARTIN CARLIN, LAST QUARTER 18TH CENTURY

Closed13 December 2018

Price Realised

GBP 10,000

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A LOUIS XVI ORMOLU-MOUNTED MAHOGANY BUREAU A PUPITRE
BY MARTIN CARLIN, LAST QUARTER 18TH CENTURY
The detachable upper section with a rounded rectangular double-ratchetted green leather-lined reading slope with a removable mahogany stop, the platform top with pierced three-quarter gallery above a slide to each side, the panelled frieze drawer above a spalt supported open shelf, the waist above a panelled secretaire-drawer with hinged fall-front and green leather-lined writing-surface, on turned tapering fluted legs headed by engine-turned capitals and joined by a concave-fronted rectangular undertier, with tapering sabots, stamped twice 'M. CARLIN' and 'JME'
66½ in. (169 cm.) high, fully extended; 49½ in. (126 cm.) high, closed; 30½ in. (77 cm.) wide; 22½ in. (57 cm.) deep

Boulle to Jansen: An Important Private European Collection, Christie's, London, 11-12 June 2003, lot 53, where acquired.

Specialist note

Martin Carlin, maître in 1766.

Arguably the most celebrated ébéniste of the Louis XVI period, Martin Carlin is known for his delicate and multi-functional furniture. Married to the sister of fellow cabinetmaker Jean-François Oeben and established au signe de la Colombe in the Grand-Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Carlin worked almost exclusively for the marchand-merciers Simon-Philippe Poirier and his partner Dominique Daguerre. Executed for a library or cabinet, the complex mechanism of this pupitre suggests it was most probably a commission. A related bureau à écrire debout to the present lot formerly in the collection of Sir Richard Wallace, rue Lafitte, Paris, sold Sotheby's Monaco, 4-5 March 1984, lot 485 (illustrated. in F. J. B. Watson, Le Meuble Louis XVI, Paris, 1963, no.135, and P. Hughes, The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Furniture - III, London, 1996, p.1542).