Lot Essay
The form of the serpentined bureau-plat, which is conceived in the Louis XV picturesque style and embellished in the Chinese manner with 'pagod' herms and pavilions flanked by attendants with dragons, relates to one acquired by Count Bruhl in 1749 and now at Schloss Pförten, Saxony (what appears to be a nineteenth century replica of this kingwood-veneered bureau is illustrated in C. Payne's, 19th Century European Furniture, Woodbridge, 1986, p. 216). Bruhl's bureau plat was supplied en suite with an armoire, which no doubt related to a 'Pagod'-enriched armoire attributed to a son of Andre-Charles Boulle (d. 1732) in the Gaignat sale of 1769. Indeed a tortoiseshell-veneered commode with similar mounts, is likely to have been executed by one of the Boulle sons, possibly Charles (d. 1754), see Christie's, New York, The collection of the late Joanne Toor Cummings, 21 May 1996, lot 238.