A RUSSIAN BRASS-MOUNTED MAHOGANY SECRETAIRE-À-ABATTANT

The china-railed secretaire is designed in the late 18th century French/antique fashion with Egyptian vestal-term pilasters flanking a silken-veil-figured tablet of mahogany that is recessed in a poetic palm-flowered triumphal arch. A related vestal-termed secretaire featured in an engraving of Costumes Parisiens, issued in 1799; while the Parisian taste for such golden reed mouldings and inlay was popularised by the Moravian ébéniste David Roentgen (d. 1807) and later illustrated in Piere Antoine Leboux La Mésangère's, Collection de Meubles et objets de goût, 1801 (see U. Leben, Molitor, London, 1992, figs. 139 & 74). Its arched tablet can perhaps be related to the Roman bath window featured in the design for St. Petersburg Grecian Stock Exchange by the French architect Thomas de Thomon (d. 1815), who is credited with the design of a table in the Hermitage Museum that has been attributed to Heinrich Gambs and incorporates a grand arched mirror framed by Egyptian vestal term pilasters (A. Chenevière, Russian Furniture, London, 1988, fig. 149).