A LOUIS XIV BRASS AND TIN MOUNTED BUREAU MAZARIN

The bureau dressing-table has a 'commode' recess concealed between drawer-nests whose canted and hermed corner-pilasters are stretcher-tied with medallioned trays. Its golden tablets are inlaid in a silvery lace, with flowered compartments enwreathed by Roman foliage and frets of wave-scrolled ribbons; and reflect the Louis Quatorze 'Roman' fashion featured around 1700 on the engraved Oeuvres of the Paris-trained architect Daniel Marot (d.1752). This pattern of drawer-nest frame relates to that of a 'boulle' table displayed during Louis XIV's visit to the Gobelins Manufactory in the mid-1660's; the time when the present table model is thought to have been invented by the celebrated court ébéniste Pierre Gole (T.H. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Pierre Gole, Dijon, 2005, and fig. 109). The table form was named a bureau 'Mazarin' in the 19th century.