A FRENCH ORMOLU-MOUNTED MAHOGANY AND LEMONWOOD BUREAU PLAT

This palatial bureau plat à têtes de guerriers antiques is after the celebrated model by Charles Cressent of which the most famous example is in the Salon Doré at the Elysée Palace in Paris - where it is used by successive Presidents of France. Another with cartonnier was sold from the première vente de Cressent in 1749 and again in the second sale in 1757, lot 116, entering the collection of the duc de Richelieu before selling lastly, in 1788, to Lord Willoughby in London and passing by descent to Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire, where it remains. A third example formally belonging to the Princess Trivulzio and later to Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild and is today in the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon.

Documented and admired, the model was revived in the second half of the 19th century by the foremost ébénisties of the day, including Alfred Beurdeley and Henry Dasson, who made faithful replicas of the utmost quality like the present example. A desk of this model by Dasson sold Christie’s, London, 6 June 2017, lot 278 (£30,000) and another by Beurdeley sold Christie’s, Paris, 17 April 2012, lot 423 (94,600 €).